Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Various issues here Emily.

First, you now have your own benchmarks against which to measure future emails.

Second, what is it you were trying to achieve? If it was website visits, was a 5% CTR enough for you? You are the only one who can really judge.

Third, I'm assuming you had a 22% open rate? This does not mean 22% of those who received your email read your email. Your delivery stats do not tell you how many emails actually landed in an inbox and didn't get quietly diverted to junk or delete folders en route. And the open rate means that 22% of "delivered" emails caused the tracking image to be called from the sender's server. Open rates are a science unto themselves:

https://www.email-marketing-reports.com/email-open-rates/

...but basically many email clients and webmail services do not call the tracking image and so many "opens" go unrecorded. A called image is also no indication that the recipient then actually took any notice of the email.

Fourth, every sender, email and recipient list is different, which makes it difficult to make comparisons and absolute statements about what's good and what's bad. But FWIW...

A 22% open rate isn't bad, but it's not brilliant. A good B2B email campaign ought to do better. Were people expecting the newsletter? What sender and subject line did you use? Expectation/recognition and sender/subject lines are probably the biggest factors in determining whether a first email (that reaches the inbox) gets "opened."

Dear Emily

Comparative benchmarks are of little use apart from making you feel good or bad, complacent or nervous! What matters are the results you get back in enquiries and orders.

Open rate and click through have become the old “Read” and “Asked for info” from direct mail except that in reality, click through is reading and emailing or phoning you is asking for information.

I’ve spent just as long saying, “That’s a good figure, now what orders arose from it?” as I used to spend saying, “We generated 52 leads” or “The mailer was responded to by 7.2% of the recipients” and so on with my CEO going, “That’s good, but what about the orders?”

Mark is right – only you can judge, but as a benchmark, you should aim for more than 22% opening the email. That’s like saying 78% of a direct mail shot went straight into the bin, with the major difference that repeating the email shot with a different message and different heading is a very low cost exercise whereas re-mailing costs about $1 per item.

A/B comparisons are useful if you want to test what makes people open an email, or given the medium, just try and try again being careful not to upset the recipients. Send out 100 with one header and 100 randomly with another header. You’ll have a reasonable insight into what your recipients prefer with about a 10% confidence factor if you stick to changing a single thing – such as the title.

Because opening an email is so low down on the pecking order of results, you should only really start to get excited about click throughs to your site and even then I would be more inclined to look at unique click through so a designated landing page with some sort of painless call to action – such as a button to make an enquiry. If you get them that far, you’re only one small sales step from getting an order. Or 10 small sales steps depending on the complexity of your process!

I’d also put all the email recipients into your CRM system and use it to track the campaign through to enquiries and orders. Then you can justify your campaign and follow through. Mind you, it is still a bit spooky to receive a telephone call saying, “I see that you were looking at our website 23 minutes ago, can I be of service?”

One other point is worth making. Most punters receiving an email out of the blue will only express real buying behaviour if they can satisfy 3 criteria:

1. They have an interest in your product or service
2. They have and application for your product or service
3. They have the budget or the discretion to purchase it

Unless all three are met, you don’t have a sale just now. If 1 and 2 are met, it is up to you to develop 3 in the fullness of time. That’s were the CRM system comes in – though it should be called PRM – Prospect Relationship Management.


Lastly, say you get only a 5% measurable enquiry rate. Is that disappointing – was the service of no interest to the other 95%? Well no, that is not the case. More likely it wasn’t of interest today. In 6 months time everything could be different. That’s the beauty of email shots – as long as you don’t bug the recipients, you can usually catch them at the one time in their year when your company appears to be the solution to a problem. Meanwhile, keep them amused and informed so that they enjoy your communications. For instance, I’ve never unsubscribed from HP, Dell or Cannon. I browse their newsletters and act when I need to.

Best wishes

Steve Alker
Xspirt

Actually, do don't really want just a clickthru - you want someone to buy from you. So, your ROI should measure the amount of money your email generated. Ultimately, that's what really matters.

However, Steve's point about "of interest today" is key. Your true email campaign is to stay "top of mind". Sending information on a regular basis is one way to achieve it. Focus on making your emails don't go into people's spam folders. Also, focus on making the emails of true value, and not simply "we're still here and want you to buy from us".