The majority of companies in the UK are overlooking the importance of testing their B2B email marketing communications.
According to new research from Adestra and Econsultancy, just 32 per cent of marketers are currently ensuring that they carry out regular testing on their communication systems.
Those companies that do realise the importance of doing so and do employ frequent testing are often only focusing their efforts on spam and email subject lines. The research also revealed that just 40 per cent of companies are opting for A/B split-tests.
Failing to include a regular, comprehensive testing programme into email marketing communications and activities will likely be to the detriment of a business, experts within the email marketing industry say.
Those firms not testing could well be sending out email messages blindly to business email lists that simply aren't relevant anymore. These companies will also find that, without testing the systems, there is little to no scope for improving and enhancing response rates.
Managing director at Adestra, Henry Hyder-Smith, told Business Strata, “Each email campaign is an opportunity to learn and improve. In a simple A/B split-test, identifying which dataset has the higher response rate, and which is a failure, can lift ROI with every single email campaign.”
Mr Hyder-Smith went on to say that it was only with an ongoing testing strategy that firms using business email lists and B2B email marketing are able to "identify failures and successes specific to their dataset."
Testing has proven to be even more important of late following recent research from econsultancy which revealed that B2B email marketing still remains the most popular method of communication. A vast 86 per cent of business opt to use this method of communicating with customers or prospective clients other methods, such as the newly-popular social networking.
Therefore, if the email marketing channel is not tested to ensure that it is performing to the best of its ability and bringing nothing but positives to the business, the firm could be losing out far more than previously thought.
Alongside testing, ensuring that the emails look appealing to recipients is crucial to their success. Venture capitalist at Greylock Partners, James Slavet, wrote a recent post entitled 'How to write emails your customers will actually read' for Forbes.com. In the post, he suggested several tips for creating strong subject lines for email marketing messages.
“Subject lines should be attention getting and action oriented. They should lure the reader to want to watch what’s inside,” said Slavet.
He suggested including a number in the subject line which will give recipients a sense of urgency and allow them to see what they can expect to receive from taking the time to click on the email. He gave a strong example of this practice as 'Only four seats left!'
Another tip Slavet suggested was the insertion of some appealing and well known brands, such as Skechers shoes, which will help to boost click rates dramatically.
“Subject lines lend themselves well to A/B testing. You should experiment with alternative approaches and see what generates the highest rates of click-throughs and conversions,” the expert added. 
New opportunities for marketers are becoming increasingly prevalent thanks to the continued growth in the smartphone sector. 
Google has come out on top in a recent customer satisfaction research project.
