Posts tagged open rate

Open Rates

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There different ways to measure the success of your email marketing or E-newsletter, but the most common and easiest understood metric is the Open Rate. Makes sense. If folks don’t open your message, they can’t be influenced by it!

But what about the simple brand awareness/recognition that you achieve by recipients simply seeing your piece in their inbox? (see, it’s complicated…)

So your open rate is obviously of supreme importance over the long term. It’s the first step towards “conversion”, whatever that may mean to you, and marketing success.

It is also fairly clear that you’ll never achieve a 100% rate, or anything close. Everyone’s time is too short and inbox too full for that to happen. But you shouldn’t spend much time worrying about the specific open rate, anyway. (What?? I thought you said it was vitally important a second ago? Bear with me for a moment.)

The reason the actual number is of limited significance is this: What constitutes a “good” rate? In comparison to what?

There are many different types of communications, both business-to-consumer and business-to-business. Business-oriented lists tend to have higher rates, partly because emails seen in the preview pane of Outlook (a common business email service) count as “opened”. Everyone has a different list profile, too.

If you send to a rented list of 100,000 people, and 10% (or 10,000) view your piece, that could be a smashing success. If however you send to your own personal house list of 50 addresses, and only 10 view your email (20%), you might consider this a failure!

What matters most is when or how your open rate changes from campaign to campaign. An increasing rate says you’re hitting the mark, a decreasing open rate points to a problem.

That said, there are certainly some tricks and tips that our writers have learned to improve open rates over time. We’ll share some of these in future posts to help you improve your rates, too!

Content Is King Online

You’ve undoubtedly heard that phrase before. And it makes perfect sense when you consider that your content is the thing that attracts your customers to your product or service, and then retains their attention. With clear, concise and compelling information about your company, your products and your services, presented in the most effective and efficient way, you hope to move the visitor to view your offering in a favorable way, and then take action as they make their purchasing decision.

The primary goal of your online content should always be to drive these key purchasing decisions and responses, since after all, this is the reason you’re in business, right? But there is an added benefit to having great content online.

You are also affecting future inquiries and sales by virtue of improving your online search engine ranking, or SEO (search engine optimization) results when you have great content. The algorithms used by Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. are far too complex and have too many variables to be discussed in this article, but suffice it to say that the quality of your content – meaning the inclusion of keywords that are relevant to your product category and the frequency of their use – as well as the number of external links from other online sources to your content AND the frequency of your web updates or postings are all quite important for creating a good SEO ranking for your website.

And the higher your score, the more likely it is that you will be found in “organic” search engine results and be higher up on the list of results – which means more visitors to your site, and which also means more business for you. There are a number of effective ways to create and share your content online. The most important categories are:

E-NEWS

E-Newsletters, or email marketing, are one great way to share valuable information, advice, special promotions and offers with your customers and prospects. This method is dependent on you having a good list of email addresses, of course. (If you do not track email addresses for your customers or business contacts, now is a great time to start! This list is one of your most valuable resources for future business.)

There are a number of tips you can employ to increase the “open” rate of your email newsletter, and the “click” rate, or those that take action after reading your message. Most distribution vendors provide information not only on open and click thrus, but also things like email address bounces and unsubscribes. Other details such as the subject line, the use of graphics, and keeping important links “above the fold” in your message can increase your readership and your response rates.

PROFESSIONAL BLOGS

For those that do not have a viable list of email addresses for their customers, a professional blog is another way to communicate with the masses and get the word out about your service or product. A well written blog can establish you as an expert within your business category, a “trusted advisor” that readers will consult before making their purchasing decisions. Promoting your blog is vital. Not only should your official blog be prominently featured (and hosted) on your website, but also social media sites and other online venues. (Why host on your website, as opposed to a blogging site like blogger.com? Because you want the “juice,” or the boost in SEO score, to apply to YOUR website, not the website of an external entity. We have the capability at Hat Trick Associates to install a WordPress blogging script within your website – like this one – to generate the additional web content benefits for your own site and not someone else’s.)

One of the many great aspects of a blog is the ability to receive comments back from your readership, which creates a more collaborative and interactive environment for your communications. This type of feedback is vital to understanding the changing wants and needs of your customer base, and responding appropriately.

FACEBOOK, TWITTER, LINKEDIN

Social networking sites can be another important and growing tool in distributing your content online. Facebook fan pages, Twitter feeds and other networking sites such as company pages on LinkedIn provide a great platform not only to connect and communicate with your customer base, but also gives them the opportunity to provide feedback and spread the message about your organization to all of the other connections they have on these social media sites. And the usage of these sites is rapidly increasing, and not just among the younger generations. The fastest growing segment on Facebook you may wonder? Women over the age of 55.

HAT TRICK ASSOCIATES: We. Create. Content.

Hat Trick Associates specializes in the creation and distribution of web content. Whether it be a custom E-Newsletter template and unique content researched and written every month for each issue; a professional blog created for you, with 100% original blog posts researched and written for you and published on a pre-determined schedule; or a social networking account such as a Facebook fan page or Twitter feed set up and content-managed for you, we can help.

Great Email Marketing Subject Lines

At Hat Trick Associates, we’re always being asked things like, “What is the best day to send email?”, “What are the real email marketing secrets?” and “What are great subject lines?”. I decided to focus this post on that last one, and offer some really great and proven-to-work subject lines that you can test out for your email marketing campaigns.

First of all, I’m assuming at this point that your recipients will recognize you from your “From Label”. I’ve written why your From Label is very important in your email marketing campaigns. If they are familiar with who the email is coming from, you’ll have better luck getting your email opened with a catchy subject line.

As a retailer your email marketing campaigns are probably all about selling. If you sell your own products or products from other manufacturers, you’ll be trying to announce new products, new seasons or discounts and sales. You’ll want your recipients to act fast, so you may want to try expiration dates in your subject line. We even see businesses using hours in the day in their expiration time periods.

You’ll see that some of these subject lines are a bit vague like “An Exclusive Offer for You”, however sometimes that might get more opens than if you talk about a specific product. That’s something that we often test for clients to determine what specific subject lines have the most impact.

Here are some sample offers:

Enjoy this Special Offer at Our New Location

25-40% off – Email-Only Offer – Today Only

Invitation-Only 2 Hour Event Starts 11:30 AM CT

Ends Today! 20% Off Friends & Family

Top 10 under $10

Free shipping – offer ends in 3 days

Free product with purchase of [product name]

[New Product] has arrived. Order now before we run out.

Earn double points for [insert product or action].

Last Chance: Get up to $25 now

Save 10% on your next order

Service Notice: Exciting new changes at [your company]

An Exclusive Offer for You

[Your company] October Specials

Last minute deals, special offers, and new [product name]

Act Now to renew your [subscription name]

Online only: 25% off friends and family

[Product name] Promotion week. Save 25%

Extended for a day! Get Free shipping through Friday

Limited Supply: Limit 2 [product name] per customer

Ho-ho-ho: The [your company] holiday catalog is here!

Ends Today: Take 20% off your entire order

Your choice of amazing items $50 + under

Great gifts for [Dad, Mom, etc]

Best Sellers for every [girl, boy, man, woman, dog, etc.]

Everything you need when the temperatures [rise, fall]

Free Shipping–Limited Time Offer

Catchy & Creative

We’ve got you covered from head to toe (clothing retailer)

Celebrity Favorites (selling accessories that Hollywood is wearing)

Did you remember to get a gift? It’s ok, we did. (retailer wanting to get people to register for gift reminders)

10 Gift Ideas for your little ones (retailer listing top 10 suggestions for kids)

Take your pick: Our 9 Favorite Dresses (retailer suggesting by popularity)

Coolest modern desk on the job…for $149 (retailer including price in the subject line)

Score Great Savings on Game-Time Gear: HDTVs, Furniture & More (retailer selling TV’s with a sports slant)

Party Like it’s 1999 Aged Cabernet Special (wine retailer)

In our store: Last minute Mother’s Day combo ready to go (retailer getting the last minute shoppers with a catch “combo to go”.)

Adorn Your Home Now & Through the Holidays (Home decor retailer)

Mind-Blowing Grenache (wine retailer)

Bring this email to a Gap store and win! (retailer trying to get store traffic)

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