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The most successful e-mail marketing programs are built on a strong foundation—a core of ideas that can support even the most sophisticated and complex campaigns. E-mail marketers who consistently achieve great results do so by paying close attention to the following five areas:
1. Metrics
2. Deliverability
3. Frequency
4. List Growth
5. Legislation
Let’s review these core competency and how each should fit together with the others to ensure a sound footing for your e-mail marketing programs.
Metrics: Vital for Relevance
Metrics, one of the very reasons marketers love e-mail, also frequently bedevils them. I’m often asked what to measure, how to measure and what to do with the data once gathered. Basic elements for marketers to examine include open rates, click-throughs and bounce rates. A solid open rate is useful for evaluating the combination of your brand value and subject line. Click-through rates are valuable for evaluating your call-to-action.
Now here’s where that pinch of bedevilment comes in. Although studies have consistently shown open rates to be on the decline, click-through rates are either staying steady or increasing slightly, depending on which report you read. The discrepancy arises for two reasons. Because open rates are measured through the use of image pixels embedded in the e-mail, the increasing prevalence of image-blocking in e-mail programs like Gmail and Outlook 2003 may tend to depress open rates. At the same time, the “preview” function in some e-mail browsers can artificially inflate open rates. So although open rates should be part of the overall e-mail measurement mix, marketers should not rely on them exclusively as a measurement of campaign success.
If your call to action was to click through to a Web site, examining click-throughs can be an excellent measure of how enticing your e-mail message was. If sending e-mails with multiple links, track each separately so you can evaluate what works best.
Using click-through behavior to segment customers can prove extraordinarily beneficial, enabling the marketer to enhance the relevance of e-mail messages by responding to areas of proven interest to the recipient based on what “clicked” with them, so to speak. JupiterResearch reports that only about a third of all e-mail marketers segment by click-through data. To give your e-mail program a significant competitive advantage, monitor click-throughs closely and use the information to enhance the relevance of your e-mail content and offers.
Another metric to monitor closely is your bounce rate. Bounces are e-mails that, for whatever reason, didn’t make it to the intended recipient and were returned. Hard bounces, in which the domain or individual e-mail address no longer exists, should be removed from your list immediately. Soft bounces, caused by full mailboxes, downed servers or other reasons, should be monitored closely. A good rule of thumb I generally recommend is to remove addresses that have soft-bounced three times in a row over a span of at least 21 days.
1. Metrics
2. Deliverability
3. Frequency
4. List Growth
5. Legislation
Let’s review these core competency and how each should fit together with the others to ensure a sound footing for your e-mail marketing programs.
Metrics: Vital for Relevance
Metrics, one of the very reasons marketers love e-mail, also frequently bedevils them. I’m often asked what to measure, how to measure and what to do with the data once gathered. Basic elements for marketers to examine include open rates, click-throughs and bounce rates. A solid open rate is useful for evaluating the combination of your brand value and subject line. Click-through rates are valuable for evaluating your call-to-action.
Now here’s where that pinch of bedevilment comes in. Although studies have consistently shown open rates to be on the decline, click-through rates are either staying steady or increasing slightly, depending on which report you read. The discrepancy arises for two reasons. Because open rates are measured through the use of image pixels embedded in the e-mail, the increasing prevalence of image-blocking in e-mail programs like Gmail and Outlook 2003 may tend to depress open rates. At the same time, the “preview” function in some e-mail browsers can artificially inflate open rates. So although open rates should be part of the overall e-mail measurement mix, marketers should not rely on them exclusively as a measurement of campaign success.
If your call to action was to click through to a Web site, examining click-throughs can be an excellent measure of how enticing your e-mail message was. If sending e-mails with multiple links, track each separately so you can evaluate what works best.
Using click-through behavior to segment customers can prove extraordinarily beneficial, enabling the marketer to enhance the relevance of e-mail messages by responding to areas of proven interest to the recipient based on what “clicked” with them, so to speak. JupiterResearch reports that only about a third of all e-mail marketers segment by click-through data. To give your e-mail program a significant competitive advantage, monitor click-throughs closely and use the information to enhance the relevance of your e-mail content and offers.
Another metric to monitor closely is your bounce rate. Bounces are e-mails that, for whatever reason, didn’t make it to the intended recipient and were returned. Hard bounces, in which the domain or individual e-mail address no longer exists, should be removed from your list immediately. Soft bounces, caused by full mailboxes, downed servers or other reasons, should be monitored closely. A good rule of thumb I generally recommend is to remove addresses that have soft-bounced three times in a row over a span of at least 21 days.
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Hitting the Email Inbox
The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing