I’ll be blunt: email marketing works.
There’s no doubt that it can be one of the most powerful (and cost-effective) eMarketing Techniques in your toolkit.
But one of the problems we’ve seen with email marketing has always been the fact that on average, marketers should only expect an open rate between 20-40%.
Relatively speaking, this could be viewed as a high amount of people viewing your message. And if they’re not viewing it, it’s most likely because of the following three reasons:
- The spam filter got to it
- They were so inundated, they simply didn’t open it
- They accidentally deleted it
My concern is with reason #1…spam filters.
Thanks to CAN-SPAM compliance laws put into place by Congress in 2003, we have to be very careful who we send email to: only those who ‘opted-in’.
If I’m at a trade show and I receive 20 business cards from interested prospects, I want to make sure that as many of those individuals as possible get my email. Yet, my open rate is still only 20-40%!
Increasing the click-through rate is a huge part of it to (and moreover, increasing the conversion rate), but what can I do to increase that open rate?
Personally, I believe the best way to improve open-rates is through follow-up.
Think about these types of individuals:
- They want your stuff, but it goes straight to the spam filter and they don’t even know about it
- They’re incredibly busy, and only check the email that they know is important
You have an opportunity during each email campaign to improve open-rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. We highly recommend segmenting your list (the smaller and more personal the segments are, the better). Also, split testing can be very informative to help you determine stronger subject lines, email layouts, and more.
Here are 4 eMarketing Techniques that we use to increase the relative success of our email campaigns:
- Technique #1: Give a quick phone call to the individuals that click on your email within a week of the campaign. It’s important to track who these people are, and make sure that they’re opening and clicking on your email month after month. Give them some TLC…they deserve it.
- Technique #2: Send a follow-up email without HTML (just use plain text) to the individuals that did not open the email within two weeks. Make sure it is coming from one individual and that it looks as though it was a personal email to that person.
- Technique #3: Make sure you are tracking who you get a response from during steps 1 and 2. If you don’t track, how do you know if your campaign is working? There are multiple systems out there for higher ed that help you manage this tracking. Personally, we are fans of Intelliworks because it combines CRM and email marketing into one robust system.
- Technique #4: For those that do not respond back with an email after technique 2, give them a phone call before your next email campaign. Express your interest in making sure that they receive your email, as it will contain value-packed information that you feel they should be aware of.
Email marketing can be one of the strongest tools in your arsenal. Test out different techniques within your market to explore the opportunities it provides, and implement follow-up techniques to see even more success!
Happy eMarketing.
- Brad Kleinman
www.WorkSmart-eMarketing.com
brad@WorkSmart-eMarketing.com
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Brad,
These are great pre-mailing and follow-up techniques. Direct mail never stood on just one mailing alone and the same is true for e-mail. I’d also remind people that 20-40% is a great open rate. If we think back to direct snail mail, where 1% purchasing was a good response (in some industries) we remember that 1% buying often came from less than 20% opening. We couldn’t track who opened the envelope, but we knew that even carefully targeted mailings often went directly to the trash.
I’d add to this that we need to target our e-mail as precisely as our snail mail. Though we’re not paying for postage, we may in some cases be paying for lists so we need to ensure that we’re reaching the right people.
Then we must also pay attention to our “from” and “subject” lines.
This fall I almost pitched an e-mail send from an individual I didn’t know with a subject line “Oktoberfest.” For some reason I opened it anyway. It turned out that I was a member of the association hosting the event, I just couldn’t tell that until I’d opened the e-mail. If the from field had not been this unknown person, but instead XYZ org, I would have known right away. The same goes for the subject line. It should have said something like “Join us for the XYX annual Oktoberfest.”
These fields are like the printing on an envelope, we have just a few spots to show them what the mail is about and entice them to open it. If we don’t give them a hint, a reason to open, they won’t. But if we take the care with our “from” and “subject” fields that we do with our email copy, it can make a world of difference. And, of course, once we get them to open the e-mail we should make sure it is formatted correctly so that everyone has a chance to read the message we’ve so carefully crafted.