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Archive for the ‘Email Marketing Statistics’ Category

Changing our Email Lexicon: An open by any other name

Posted by Rob Ropars on June 26th, 2009

istock_000005964203xsmallIn 1594, Shakespeare wrote:  “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet…”.  Although some words may be better than others to convey the meaning of a marketing term, resistance to change can keep lesser-qualified words in place.  Take for example the word “open.”

It would seem to be an easy thing to understand.  A door is open or closed (unless it’s ajar-sorry old joke), accounts are open or not, etc.  When it comes to email marketing, “open” doesn’t manage to fully define what we’re trying to say.  Marketers (and those they report to) look to their Email Service Provider’s reporting data to quantify the success of a campaign.

This includes various metrics including:  delivery, opens, clicks, bounces and unsubscribes.  Savvy marketers know to review not only the immediate results, but performance over time, against similar prior campaigns, and web analytic/ROI data.  This provides a fuller measure of how an email performed during its life.

One statistic in the email realm has always tended to raise eyebrows-the open rate.  For an ESP, this is currently measured by someone viewing messages in an HTML email.  This sounds like a simple process, but there is a catch.  It has become commonplace for email clients to have images off by default.  Your recipients must take an action to enable images in order to see them.  This not only impacts how you should be designing campaigns, but how you interpret the results.

Industry figures vary, but the average “open” rate is often in the 20-25% range.  I’ve spoken to several clients over the years needing to reconfirm the meaning of their results after they had presented campaign data internally.  If you’re open rate was 20%, an assumption is made that 80% of your list didn’t open the email (i.e. the opposite).  Nothing could be further from the truth, but as they say perception is reality.


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Email is The New Peoria

Posted by Jordan Ayan on December 11th, 2008

Will it Play in Peoria

In years past, prior to the launch of a major nationwide promotion, advertisers (usually packaged goods firms), would often test the promos in Peoria. In fact it is considered the test market capital of the world. Email is the New Peoria, only it is cheaper, and much more accessible. There is little debate that email marketing is one of the most cost effective methods for getting your message out. Email marketing is not however a one size fits all. There are customers and prospects who don’t have email accounts (albeit fewer and fewer these days). There are also, unfortunately, customers who just plain refuse to subscribe to your email communications despite your great opt-in process.

Email can be your greatest ally in creating off-line campaigns that produce better returns than they might otherwise. If you have created a rich email database, you have a powerful sandbox in which to experiment with offers and creative designs that you can translate into off-line campaigns. Sure, the medium is different, but the fundamentals are similar, so email is a great starting point, and in this economy, it can eliminate false starts that can eat into your marketing budget.

So as you start thinking about your next marketing campaigns, start with what I will call email focus groups. Small run tests of the different aspects of your messaging and creative to, as they say, “see how it plays in Peoria.”

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