Inside LabourStart

Everyone has an opinion about this, but for the first time, LabourStart has done what’s called A/B testing on one of our regular mailings.

Basically, we told MailChimp to write to 10% of the people on our list with one subject line, used a different subject line for another 10%, and then wait 24 hours.  The content of the message stayed the same.  The subject line that generated the most opens was then automatically selected for the remaining 80% of the list.

The results were as follows:

• When the subject line was Victory: Valentin Urusov and Basile Mahan Gahé are now free, 14.5% of the recipients opened the message – a total of 1,116.
• When the subject line didn’t include their names — it was simply Victory: Jailed union leaders freed — 15.5% of the recipients opened the message, a total of 1,190.

In other words, the subject line that was free of names generated 74 more opens than the other, which would have translated to 740 additional opens over the entire list.

It’s not a massive difference, but it’s interesting.

Another thing we may want to test is whether mentioning a country name helps or hinders (e.g., Union leaders jailed vs Korean union leaders jailed).