Execution of a successful email marketing campaign can get complicated at times. Reaching optimal results from your email marketing campaigns requires planning. Undertaking an email marketing assessment will tell you if your efforts are right on target or need improvement.
Some marketers measure email campaign success by their email opens. The more opens the bigger the triumph. That may be so in some cases, but email opens do not show the entire picture.
To know what is really going on with email campaigns a yearly email marketing assessment is recommended.
To begin your assessment, gather your email marketing data going as far as you can; 12 months is optimal. We suggest you sort your campaigns: i.e. by the different objectives of email mailing. There are several objectives and can include:
Average dollar per email sent or delivered - Bounce rate
- Call to Action follow through; i.e. downloads, website visit, or order.
- Click to open (number of unique clicks / numbers of unique opens)
- Click-through rate
- Conversion rates
- Delivery stats
- Net subscribers (number of subscribers and new subscribers less bounces and unsubscribes)
- Open Rate
- Percentage of unique clicks on specific URLs.
- Referrals to a friend
- SPAM complaints
- Total Revenue
- Unsubscribes
This list shows there are better and more meaningful metrics than email opens. Using a list like this the marketer can determines which metrics are critical to measure success.
This list is not complete as the metrics selected will depend on what type of organization or business email program you are managing.
It is up to the marketer to determine which measurements are critical to review, for example:
- Retail stores would be interested in conversion rates, number and size of orders.
- A service organization may want to consider click-through percentages on, specific topics, and demo requests.
- Service industries may be concerned with new subscribers, growth, referrals, and open rates.
With the metrics selected, compare the last several months of mailings and note:
- Are the metrics consistent each month? In cases where you see a decline in opens, was their delivery problems? Where there better clickthrough rates for some months and not for others? Realize that a change in consistency can suggest you had better articles, more interesting content, or more relevancy to the readers.
- What about cases with great and bad metric in the same mailing? i.e. low open rate but fantastic click to open rate. You may have had an uninteresting Subject Line, a different FROM address or a delivery issue but the content was relevant to those who opened it. Work with your ESP to pinpoint the issues and continue to keep tabs on your mailings.
- Ask for feedback from your list members. Feedback is just that, comments from your subscribers. Make it easy for members to give you feedback: send a year end survey with your December email campaign or email a survey as a follow up to an order, website visit or a follow-up to an online comment.
- Track your websites analytics. Look at the messages, purchases or articles that produced the most visits after a mailing.
- Organizations that mail more than one newsletter, compare your notes with the other marketer. Additionally look at industry standards to see if you’re way off, or on target for your type of business.
- Re read the messages of your actual mailings. Compare subject lines, for example, to note which had the best results. Better results could simply be a change with:
- A short Subject line versus a long Subject Line.
- The format and length of the message
- The tone of the newsletter, was it humorous, factual, or conservative?
- Did you segment and personalize all your mailings? Were these more successful compare those that were standard and homogenized.
- Look at newsletters from the competitors in your industry. (You should be on their mailing list) Which newsletters grabbed your attention, and why. Compare this to your emails.
- Finally take time to assemble all your charts, graphs, and data. Look at the big picture when doing your email marketing review. So, in the months to come mailing and results will improve.
An email marketing assessment will assist the marketer to achieve optimal email results. Take some time to collect all this information to conduct your analysis and look at the big picture for success. Use this guide to create your upcoming goals for the next year. Please leave your comments
