A/B Testing in Email Marketing: How Dietitians Can Optimize Campaign Performance
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Libby: [00:00:00] If you're looking to grow your business as a registered dietitian, you've come to the right place. If you're not sure what to do or what steps to take next so that you can create flexibility and freedom in your life, then you're gonna learn a lot from tuning into our podcast here at Dietitian Boss.
I'm Libby Rothchild, the founder of Dietitian Boss, a fellow registered dietitian and business owner, and in our podcast, I share. The highs and the lows, and I talk all about how to grow your business, get it started, and I interview our clients. To date, we've had over 200 interviews from clients who share their journey on our podcast, Dietitian Boss.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Dietitian Boss podcast. I'm Libby Rothchild, and today we're talking about one of the most effective ways to improve your email marketing. It's called AB testing. If you've ever wondered how to get more people to open your emails, click your links, or even sign up for your offers.
AB testing is the [00:01:00] key to unlocking better results. I'm gonna walk you through the process, share examples tailored to Dietitians, and give you actionable steps to start testing today. don't forget to join our monthly membership for exclusive templates and strategies to take your email marketing to the next level.
And maybe you're wondering what is AB testing and why does it matter? The basics of AB testing include a method where you send two versions of an email to different segments of your audience to see which one performs better ~for your email marketing.~
~So ~for Dietitians, this could mean testing email, subject lines, calls to action buttons, or even email designs to find out what resonates most with your subscribers. If you're not already sending regular emails to your email list, you wanna start with that.
In digital marketing to grow your audience and to make sales. Email marketing is more effective than using social media webinars, SEO, paid ads, any other form of marketing [00:02:00] in the digital landscape. So you want to have an email list. That means you wanna sign up with an email service provider and you wanna be sending out regular emails.
You also wanna be growing your email list, which can include a few different strategies. You could use online marketing to grow your email list. Or making connections in your community.
But today I am talking about how you can increase conversions by testing your email marketing strategy. The first goal is to sign up for an email service provider. Have an email list and send emails. The second more strategic goal would be to use this AP testing that I'm talking about today.
You might be wondering why is it essential for email marketing success to do this split testing that I'm talking about? AB testing can help you refine your approach and ensure that you're not leaving opportunities on the table.
Because if you have a community, you want to be engaging with them regularly and making regular offers, letting them know that you have services, you have products, [00:03:00] asking them to introduce you to people who you could do workshops for so that you can grow your practice. I worked with one of our clients who was able to improve her email open rates by 15% by testing her subject lines. A small change can lead to more clicks for your service. For example, when you look at your subject lines, that means what's the first thing people see when they, open your email.
You want that to be compelling, catchy, and short. You don't wanna have really long subject lines. So you wanna start simple. Test one variable at a time, like a subject line or a call to action button. And work on improving those facets of your email marketing strategy. Use tools like ConvertKit, which is now called Kit.
There's MailChimp as well, which have built in AB testing features to make the process easy. So how you use AB testing will depend on your email service provider, so make sure you're really familiar with the software and what they offer.
The key elements to test your email [00:04:00] campaigns. Include subject lines. Those are really important. Your subject line is the first thing that your audience sees. You can try variations that use urgency, curiosity, or personalization. for example, version A would say something like, struggling with meal prep, let's fix that.
And version B might say, simple meal prep tips for busy moms. Version B might perform better because it's specific and highlights a pain point, right? Busy moms. I want you to think about how you can improve your subject lines and then test them.
And if you're not sure, you can test a few in chat GBT and see what results generate for free. A lot of you shown me some really pretty email designs and you can play with layouts, colors, and imagery, but I stress keeping that really simple.
I would keep the design simple and focus on the text. What does the copy, say and how can we really focus on the language we're using? Over the design. So again, keep the design simple. Start with focusing on language [00:05:00] so you can test whether your audience prefers a clean design to one that's more visually rich.
I would not prioritize email design. I would prioritize getting those subject lines improved and the copy of your email in the form of text. Now calls to action, also called CTA. Your CTA, again, call to action, that's where the magic happens.
Your call to action is where you're asking someone to do something specific, buy your product or service, book a sales call, et cetera. So you can test how you use that call to action. You can test button text, like join now or learn more, and you can adjust the placement of the call to action at the bottom of your email or in different places of your email.
for a free webinar, one of our clients found that reserve your spot did outperform better than register here. I want you to think about what's gonna perform best, and then test it and look at the metrics. And that's the beauty of online marketing is that you have the ability to test things and [00:06:00] very quickly adapt to what your metrics tell you.
And that is a more advanced aspect of growing your business, is really being adaptive to the metrics that you have when it comes to email marketing websites, social media, et cetera. So as an action tip, I want you to focus on high impact elements first. That would be the subject lines and calls to action.
These often have the most significant effect on engagement. And you wanna prioritize that overlooking at design, I wouldn't even worry about the design until you've really grasped your subject lines and calls to action and you've looked at the metrics and improved them. Now in our membership, we provide a checklist, of top AB testing ideas to help you streamline your process.
I invite you to join our monthly membership [email protected]. It's called the library. Now, you might be wondering, how do you set up AB tests effectively, right?
Before testing, I want you to decide. I want you to think about what you wanna achieve. [00:07:00] Is it higher open rates, more clicks, or increased conversions, So a clear goal is gonna help you focus your efforts. I suggest one goal at a time. as an example, if you're promoting a new ebook, you might have a goal of wanting to increase clicks on the download link,
'cause that goal is directly related to sales. So you can split your audience, divide your email list into two groups, A and B many email platforms will do this automatically, test one variable at a time. So don't change too much.
If you change too many things at once, you won't know exactly what made the difference and then your experiment's not gonna really be helpful. Stick to one variable per test, which is hard 'cause you get excited and realize you can change multiple things. But have the discipline to change one thing at a time so you can easily measure the results.
Then set a timeframe. Run your test long enough to get meaningful data. But not so long that you miss opportunities. A week is often a good starting point for most Dietitians to run an [00:08:00] AB test. These platforms provide clear analytics to help you interpret results and refine your campaigns because they want you to succeed focus on metrics that matter.
Your test results will provide a range of data, focus on open rates and subject lines, and click through rates for your calls to action. Example, if version A has 25% open rate and version B has 30% open rate, then you know that version B resonates better with your audience.
Once you know what works, by running a simple test and changing only one variable at a time, you can apply those learnings to future campaigns. Over time, your emails will consistently perform better, which means you'll be reaching your goals and helping serve your audience.
For example, if you discover subject lines with numbers, outperform others. Document your findings in a spreadsheet or a simple Google document to start. Note what works and what doesn't. So you can build a library of insights to [00:09:00] optimize your future campaign.
Common AB test mistakes and how to avoid them are gonna be helpful for me to mention before we close up today's episode. Too many variables at once is the most common mistake.
If you change both your subject line and your call to action at once, you won't know which one impacted your result. Have the discipline to change one thing at a time, document the results, and then make small changes over time.
And then another mistake is drawing conclusions too early. Make sure you've gathered enough data before declaring a winner. If you have a smaller email list, you might need more time to get meaningful results. The last mistake would be not following through. The insights from your tests are only valuable if you use them. Implement those changes immediately. Start with a test plan. Outline what you'll test, how you'll test it, when you'll test it, and then apply the results.
And if you need some help getting started I [00:10:00] invite you to join our monthly membership for expert guidance and ready to use email templates where I am going to be there, right there with you to support you in your growth.
With AB testing, you can refine your strategy once you've nailed down what works, you can test new variables like email timing or audience segments to fine tune your campaigns. One Dietitian I coached fairly recently, she found that sending emails at 8:00 PM on Mondays doubled her open rates
She then tested sending tips, specific to Monday night meal prep to help kick off the week, and that really worked for her. So small changes in insights can help you. Grow your business and double your online marketing efforts. I want you to integrate testing into your routine, make ab testing a habit, not just a one-off activity.
With each test, you'll gain insights that can compound over time. The action tip here is to create a [00:11:00] monthly testing calendar to stay consistent inside our membership. We provide pre-built content calendar templates to help you execute tests mastering AB testing is a game changer for email marketing.
By testing variables like subject lines, CTAs, and even design, you can refine your approach, boost engagement, and grow your practice. Thank you for joining me today, and if you're ready to take action with your email marketing join our monthly membership called the Library. You'll get access to exclusive templates, testing, guides, and expert support from me to optimize your campaigns and grow your business. Until next time, keep testing, keep growing, and keep showing up for your audience.
Looking for support to grow your dietitian business or even get started, I invite you to join the library, our monthly affordable membership that shows you exactly what to do every step of the way so that you can create the business of your dreams. Not sure if it's the right time. The membership [00:12:00] gives you an option to.
Go at your own pace. We have modules, a roadmap to show you exactly what to do and monthly live calls, as well as new content that we release every single month based on requests inside of the library. We have four stages of business, so whether you come in getting started or you wanna enter the membership and grow or scale your business, we have the appropriate resources for you and our team, including myself, available to answer your questions.
Head on over to DietitianBoss.Com and check out the library today. We'd love to see you there.
