A Stripo case examine — Stripo.e mail

Right this moment, we wish to share a case examine of how we doubled the open charge (OR) and reached a median OR of 30% for all sorts of emails that we ship out to our subscribers. Learn the way real looking that is and what steps assist a SaaS product obtain such outcomes by studying the case examine.

I’m Oleksandr. I’ve been an e mail and digital marketer at Stripo for two.5 years. As all emails from our model are created by me, I want to take this chance to thank everybody who reads them and offers suggestions. You’re the greatest.

State of affairs: All the pieces is okay, however may very well be even higher

Stripo is an e mail design platform. In our e mail newsletters, we replace subscribers about new product releases, share e mail advertising information, and compile digests of useful weblog posts.

Now, we have now greater than 130,000 subscribers in complete. Our database consists of contacts—customers of our product (the paid or free plans)—and people who subscribed to the e-newsletter to obtain helpful info by our weblog and firm information.

In 2021, our e-newsletter’s common OR was 12–15%. This can be a typical indicator for our area of interest, however we wanted extra. So, firstly of 2022, we determined to take steps to enhance the state of affairs and improve the OR to twenty–25%.

Initially, the indications have been as follows:

7 steps we took to make clients wish to open our emails

The OR is an e mail advertising metric that reveals the share charge of emails opened amongst all delivered messages. Curiosity within the e mail topic and confidence within the sender have an effect on the worth of the OR typically. 

Listed below are the steps we determined to take to enhance our OR:

Step 1. Completely different codecs 

Sending content material of the identical sort is a direct path to oblivion. You threat changing into uninteresting to subscribers. 

Due to this fact, we determined so as to add new content material classes to make our e mail newsletters extra various. Beforehand, we solely despatched emails sharing our new templates, new releases, product modifications, and generally new articles. Now, we have now launched a brand new content material rubric.

One in every of these is the weekly thematic digest, during which we compile helpful supplies on a single subject. For instance, suggestions for getting ready emails for the New 12 months holidays—from topic traces to e mail content material.

Topic line: Ho-ho-ho, it’s the Christmas Digest 🎄

(Supply: Stripo e mail e-newsletter)

Along with distributing weblog content material, we started creating further content material for newsletters, which we had not performed earlier than. To know what matters are of curiosity to our subscribers, we performed a survey during which we requested recipients to reply a number of questions on the kind of content material they want to obtain in these emails. We added new concepts to the content material plan thanks to those responses.

Emails have thus turn out to be various in format and size. We now create brief emails, with just one button and CTA, in addition to fairly lengthy informative emails.

Step 2. Identification by sender names 

It’s higher for the OR to make use of completely different sender names for various e mail teams. Due to this fact, we divided the e-mail addresses into conditional teams and created a sender identify for every group. 

For instance, emails about new product releases, promotions, and particular presents come from the Stripo Workforce, whereas advertising digests come from Stripo Weekly. For emails from assist, we created private addresses, similar to Kyril from Stripo. On this manner, subscribers instantly see the model identify, however on the identical time, they perceive who precisely the e-mail is from and what to anticipate from it.

Some emails are despatched from the CEO, whereas others will be despatched from somebody from the staff. In these instances, we use that individual’s signature. On this manner, we personalize not solely our emails but additionally the sender.

Step 3. Focused work with segments

I create e mail templates in Stripo, export them to Yespo, and ship them to completely different segments of contacts. For segmentation, Yespo has an unimaginable RFM device that analyzes subscriber exercise: segments are created by the variety of emails opened and the final time they have been opened.

We’ve created segments of contacts who didn’t open any emails, who opened emails a very long time in the past, and who open the emails commonly.

That is how I exploit these segments:

• to probably the most energetic readers, I ship all our emails;
• to those that learn them in some unspecified time in the future however stopped studying them, I ship them emails about improvements, such because the creation of a signature generator in Stripo;
• to those that don’t learn our emails typically, I ship fewer emails—principally digests—to arouse curiosity within the subject;
• e mail addresses which have an error are misplaced contacts, so I take away them from the database in order that they don’t have a adverse impact on the metrics and the stats turn out to be clearer;
• those that haven’t opened our emails for the final 3 months (dynamic phase), I exclude them from the overall database and ship them solely particular emails.

Step 4. Up to date e mail design

In 2022, we redesigned the Stripo web site, and it was logical to replace the design of our e mail e-newsletter. As well as, our e mail editor is growing on a regular basis, so we determined to get probably the most out of its new options.

Under, you’ll be able to see some examples of previous and new variations of our emails.

We modified the fonts, the form of the buttons and labored on the construction. Emails have additionally turn out to be extra accessible and readable. And, as we have now already talked about, we made new templates for brand spanking new e mail codecs: digests.

When redesigning the emails, the designers made probably the most steadily used parts, which I saved as modules in my private Module library within the Stripo editor. Due to this fact, I don’t have to contact the designer to create every e mail now. I make all the next emails simply and shortly utilizing Stripo’s modular structure.

Altering the design impacts the OR in the long term. After all, customers can’t see the modifications in e mail design earlier than they open the e-mail, however as soon as they do and see that the e-mail is structured and formatted, they’ll wish to open your subsequent emails.

Step 5. Private e mail signature

In digests and promotional emails, we started to make use of a private signature. This enables me to speak with subscribers like a fellow e mail marketer who shares thrilling advertising information and helpful instruments and sources.

The tone of voice of our emails has modified, too: it has turn out to be friendlier. For instance, as a substitute of “we advocate,” I say, “I discovered some cool stuff for you.”

For vacation digests, the identical signature is used, though it’s barely custom-made to the theme. For instance, a witch’s hat was added for Halloween and a Santa’s hat for Christmas. So even with one signature, you’ll be able to create completely different variations by making minimal modifications.

Step 6. A/B testing of the very best ship time and topic line

The topic line and e mail ship time are key parameters that immediately have an effect on the OR. Due to this fact, I made a decision to do A/B testing for them.

Our subscribers dwell in several international locations and time zones, so the very best ship time for the US and Europe will differ. The simplest for the American viewers was the morning hours earlier than the beginning of the working day and the center of the day—most certainly, the lunch break.

Due to this fact, when you’ve got an viewers that’s unfold over many international locations as we do, ideally, you’ll use the Good Ship choice, which is on the market in some ESPs.

Within the topic line, I examined completely different codecs:

• query;
• affirmative sentence;
• the usage of emojis.

The simplest for us have been topics that intrigued, have been phrased as open questions or humorous headlines, and promised a solution to a query that the readers have been positively desirous about. For instance, “suggestions and methods on learn how to improve the open charge” will work higher as a topic line than simply “open charge in e mail advertising.”

By the best way, to make A/B testing simple, you’ll be able to shortly export emails from Stripo to greater than 75 ESPs.

Step 7. The resend trick

After sending an vital or thrilling e mail, I group all of the subscribers who’ve but to open it in a separate record, and after 2 days, I ship them the identical e mail with a distinct topic line. This may develop your OR. Nevertheless, it’s best to not overuse this technique in order that your emails don’t go to spam.

Outcomes

Stripo’s performance helped me scale back the time I spent creating emails and allowed me to spend extra time on advertising experiments.

Since June 2022, we have now achieved and are sustaining the next ends in e mail advertising:

1. The OR has doubled and now averages 27–34%. On the identical time, the OR is 29% for digests, 33.6% for promo emails, and 60–70% for webinars.
2. Site visitors to the positioning from e mail newsletters additionally elevated by 10% when evaluating the previous e mail advertising technique with the brand new one. As well as, we acquired 225 registrations for the paid model of our product from new e mail subscribers.

Vital conclusions

Our experiment proves that e mail advertising works in a posh method and that one ought to take a long-term method to rising the OR. When subscribers open our emails and see that they include numerous fascinating info that’s helpful to them, they’ll open future newsletters extra typically.

E mail advertising is a protracted recreation, so don’t anticipate on the spot outcomes. You have to to ship a minimum of 4–5 emails earlier than you see any enhancements in your campaigns’ efficiency, and it takes round 6 months for these enhancements to turn out to be evident and noticeable.

Pay attention to greatest practices, implement them, and see the outcomes.

This use case was coauthored with Alina Samulska-Kholina, a copywriter at Stripo.