Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

The measure of success is only for you to determine.

Deliverability means nothing if people don't open.

Opens mean nothing if people don't read.

Reading means nothing if people don't act.

So, what is it that you want people to do? And are they doing it? That's the only measure of success that matters.

Now, having said that, ALL of those other factors -- deliverability, opens, reads, clicks, etc. -- can be improved upon to make the final metric the best that it can be.

As for splitting up the list, it can happen that a large list broken up into smaller lists can yield better results.

Usually this is because your larger mailing does not appear to be so offensive to the likes of Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Comcast, etc. The only way you'll know for sure is to break it up and see what happens.

My guess is that breaking up a 10,000-name list into five segments is not as productive as breaking up, say, a 1 million-name list into 20 segments.

But give it a go and report the results, ok?

Weekly seems too often for my clients. See what you get by DECREASING frequency.

Michael

Dear rpotinii,

First of all, what are you communicating, to whom, and about what?

In e-mail, the golden measure I've always stood by is sales.
Open rates and click through rates will only get you so far, but the true measure needs to be conversion of qualified leads into sales.

And this will depend on what you are selling and to whom. What does your starving crowd hunger for? If you don't know, bloody well find out and then give it to them!

With a database of 10,000 people what you must NOT do is send the same e-mail to everyone. At some point some of the people on your list have bought something from you.

Depending on the frequency and value of these purchases, the people making them need to be treated differently. Why? Because they are of far greater value due to them already having a relationship with you.

This means it's likely they'll buy again.

But each time you send your e-mails, stop and think. Did you send the same e-mail to the same group of people last week, and the week before that, and so on back until the dawn of time?

If you did and if you are doing this you're boring your audience.
Why do I say this? Because your message is the same, week in, week out. Once people get it into their heads that you have nothing new to tell them you can kiss open rates and click through rates goodbye because people will be unsubscribing at a rapid pace.

Tell people something new BUT MAKE SURE PEOPLE KNOW IT'S SOMETHING NEW!

Your friend's advice to send emails to different groups on different days is sound. But again, say different things to different groups and ROTATE those messages, then review your split test results.

But whatever your do, have something to say that's worth reading about.

Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA