Picture this: you’ve created a phenomenal email. One of your best ever, in fact. It’s got highly compelling content that’s relevant to your subscribers, gorgeous images, and a call to action that’s practically irresistible. This email is so good, you can’t wait to put it out there and watch the clicks and conversions start rolling in. So you’re really tempted to just pull the trigger and skip the whole testing phase. After all, you know your email is practically perfect.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, an awful lot could go wrong. Come on, admit it: in your heart of hearts, you know this. Which is why, no matter how eager you are to get that super-fantastic message out to your readers, you should always, always take time to test. Still not convinced? Below is a list of reasons why:
Catch typos, grammar and spelling errors before it’s too late. In our constant rush to get things done, typos and similar mistakes are almost inevitable. Most readers are pretty understanding if it happens once in a while, but if it’s a frequent occurrence, you’re going to appear careless, and you’re going to lose subscribers.
Ensure all links are functional and lead to the right place. Broken links are the pits. You’ve done your job well enough to get your subscriber to click, only to be sent to the wrong page – or worse, get a “page not found” error message. In a word: ugh.
Confirm that images are rendering as they should. (Check out our recent post about this). Missing images can ruin the visual impact of your message.
Make sure personalization and/or dynamic content is working properly. Who wants to receive an email addressed to someone else? Nobody, that’s who.
Make sure preview text is on message, and that it entices your recipients open the email. A lot of people forget to check this, and it can make a big impact on your open rate.
Ensure emails are displaying properly in all clients. ISPs are always changing which types of email features they support (video, preview text, etc.). So an email that went through just fine last week might not get through this week.
Ensure maximum delivery and avoid spam filters. According to our friends at Litmus, “any changes to your IP address, email authentication methods, or your content can impact your deliverability” and land you in the spam folder.
It might take a little more time to incorporate testing into your email program, but as you can see, it’s time very well spent.
In our next post, we’ll discuss how to keep testing time to a minimum so you can get on with the hundred other things on your to-do list!
Email Marketing Blog 