Chapter 5 – Measuring Results and Optimizing Your Strategy
In order to
determine whether or not your email marketing campaigns are working, you need
to analyze the data from your campaigns. The marketing measures, when all is
said and done, always serve to achieve a pre-defined goal, and whether or not
you've achieved that goal can only be determined by using the proper KPIs (key
performance indicators).
The results that
you obtain can also help you to decide whether you can expand your budget for
your email marketing strategy.
Also, data
analysis is an essential part of being able to optimize your email marketing
campaign continually. The only way that you'll be able to gauge the success of
your email marketing campaign at all is if you examine and analyze the most
critical measurements on a regular basis.
Delivery Rate and Bounce Rates
Among other
measurements, email marketing tools will measure the delivery rate, as well as
the bounce rate of your emails. These two measurements are mutually
complementary and depend on various factors such as technical conditions and
sender reputation.
The bounce rate
of your emails should always be less than one percent if you want to have a
successful campaign. If your bounce rates are higher than this, then you'll
need to do some maintenance on your list, and determine which email addresses
are no longer valid and remove them from the email list.
Open Rate
The refers to the percentage of subscribers who open the emails you send
to them. This figure can be based either on the total number of emails opened,
or the number of recipients who opened the email. The latter number is more
meaningful and is known as a "unique open rate."
Click Rate
The click rate
represents the ratio between the recipients who click on at least one link in
an email and the number of emails sent out. You can use this measurement to
determine whether your email copy and call-to-actions are compelling enough to
get users to take action. This is the most crucial measurement for you to keep
track of in your email marketing campaign.
Click-to-Open Rate
This measurement
is the ratio of the number of unique clicks to the number of unique opens. The
reference value, in this case, is not based on the total number of recipients,
but rather the number of recipients who opened the email.
If your
click-to-open rates (CTOR) are low, it could mean that the content of the email
isn’t fulfilling the expectations raised by its subject line. This means that a
large number of your subscribers opened the email, but found the content of the
email to be uninteresting and didn’t click on any of the links.
Conversion Rate
The conversion
rate is the percentage of recipients that executed the desired action at the
end of the process. This could be anything from purchasing a product,
downloading an e-book, or registering for
a webinar. You can use this measurement to determine the final success of your
email marketing campaign.
Unsubscribe Rate
It is quite
reasonable with email subscribers to unsubscribe to an email list because they
don't want to get news from the company anymore. The unsubscribe rate describes
the ratio of unsubscribes to the total number of emails delivered.
You can typically expect to
have an unsubscribe rate of about
0.25 to 0.50
percent for each mailing. As stated previously, it is essential that you
include a clearly visible unsubscribe link in every email and to implement an
unsubscribe process that is clean and simple.
Email List Growth Rate
The email list
growth rate indicates the net increase in the number of email subscribers
within a given period. This value is accordingly negative in cases when a
mailing list shrinks.
Spam Complaint Rate
This measurement
shows how many delivered emails were marked as spam. Your spam complaint rate
shouldn’t go higher than 0.3 percent. Anything higher than that and you can
expect email providers
to institute penalties when you try to deliver future emails.
Return on Investment
Your return on
investment (ROI), is the financial ratio that is used to measure the return of
an entrepreneurial strategy. This measurement compares the profit to the
invested capital. When used in email marketing, the term refers to the ratio of
the costs required for an email marketing measure to the revenue generated by
it.
Defining Your Goals
Before you send
out your first emails and start analyzing the results, you need to determine
the goals of your email marketing and what you are going to measure. You can
set goals like gaining new customers, increasing revenue, or raising brand
awareness, or it can be a combination of goals. In order for you to define concrete
goals, you are also going to need to establish the appropriate KPIs.
Measurements
like click rate, conversion rate, and email list growth rate should always be
on your list of metrics to analyze. However, you also need to specify and track
the correct KPIs depending on the goals you want to accomplish. For example, if
your goal is to gain more subscribers, then you need to focus on the email growth
rate, as well as the subscribe/unsubscribe rates. If your number one goal is to
increase revenue, then you need to focus on conversion rate.
Continuous Optimization
Analyzing the
data associated with your email marketing campaigns is a never-ending process.
They should be used to uncover potential areas for improvement in your email marketing
campaigns and should immediately flow into planning for your subsequent
campaigns.
You will need to
compare the measurement results that are achieved by your different email
campaigns to get a better sense of what did and didn't work.
As you optimize
your email marketing campaign, try different subject lines, sending the emails
at different times, placing different call-to-action buttons, and so on, until
you find a formula that works. If you discover that specific measurements
results aren't satisfactory, then you need to do some digging to find out the
cause so you can further optimize your emails to obtain the desired results.
Conclusion
When you are
getting started with email marketing, you have to pay special attention to your
audience. Since each of your subscribers will have different needs and
interests, it is essential that you analyze your data and effectively create a
variety of different strategies that you can implement to influence your
audience to purchase what you have to offer.
Make sure that
you are providing your readers with exciting, dynamic and relevant content to
keep your audience happy to receive your messages.
Remember email
marketing is an ongoing process to try not to get too frustrated if you don't
see immediate results. Your subscribers
are
knowledgeable, and you will have to work hard to provide them with valuable
information and make the connection before you can influence them to make a
purchase.
If you make the
commitment to implement great business practices, and the more you deliver on
your promises, the more your subscribers will trust you, this is the best time
to implement email marketing into your overall marketing strategy because
information is readily available, and you have many ways to obtain new
subscribers and further promote your business.
Taking the time
to implement the strategies in this book will help you become a notable email
marketer.
Click Here for Read Chapter 1stClick Here for Read Chapter 2ndClick Here for Read Chapter 3rdClick Here for Read Chapter 4thClick Here for Read Chapter 5th
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