Email is not about click and open rates anymore. Does it help your ROI to know when or if an email was opened? Not unless there is an impetus provided that inspires some type of action by the reader.
Emails are designed and intended to engage and inspire readers to perform a desired actionable response.
In this article, we explain how to select a goal for your email strategy. Setting goals for an email campaign help maintain direction.
How to Select a Goal for Content
Email marketing must have a clear and concise goal or it will fail. Email marketing has a very high rate of return on investment (ROI) so it becomes very important and worthwhile to know what your goal is before creating email content. When considering a goal for your campaign, consider the 5-W’s that nearly all content marketers use: who, what, when, where, and why.
Start with the Who
Before you can even compose a subject line you need to know who in your segmented email list you are preparing to send an email. The greatest failure of any email campaign is not knowing your intended audience. Ask such things as where are they at in the buyer’s journey? What are their habits? Consider the age group, education, and demographics of the people you want to approach. It should be needless to point out that sending an email regarding, The 15th Annual Beef Cook-Off to a group of vegetarians would not produce a high open rate. Begin with the who and design email content for the right audience.
What Do You Want Them To Do?
Define what you want your audience to do after opening your email. What implies action. What action do you desire? Other than a sale, which essentially is icing on the cake in the world of inbound marketing, what one thing do you expect readers to do? Are you promoting a sale, new product, an ebook, webinar, or a free trial of some sort? Whatever it is, know what it is.
When Does Not Have Anything to do With Time
When is it appropriate to send an email? You can read many articles and infographics that explain the best day and the best time of the day. Is the timing that important? In some cases, yes, but that is not what we mean when we say when. When we say when we don’t mean what day or what time. When refers to the who. It is important to know where each visitor or lead is at in the buyer’s journey. Is this a group that has done some research and is now searching for the right vendor? Has this group done business with you in the past and you are now wanting to keep them in the loop through occasional yet timely emails? Or is this a group expressing their need for a solution to a problem? Whatever group you focus on should dictate the type of content to provide in your email.
Do You Know Where People Read Their Emails?
The choices are few but email marketers must know where and how people are opening email. Most email (66%) is read on a mobile device. Half of those are read on a smartphone while 17% are opened on a tablet. It is also interesting (and beneficial) to note that desktop users open email Monday through Wednesday but mobile users open email Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Email opened on the weekend suggests a different strategy from email intended to be opened during the work week. Nevertheless, because of the variety of devices available for people to open and read email, it becomes imperative that email marketers use templates that accommodate all types of media devices.
Why Would Anyone Open Any Email?
Really, this question must be asked and answered. Why would anyone open your email? Or better yet, why wouldn’t anyone open one of your emails? The first thing any email recipient notices is the subject line. And if the subject line is not interesting or dynamic enough for a reader to click and read your well-crafted newsletter, click, delete, and off to the boneyard, it goes to die with other unread emails. In brief, keep your subject line around 6-10 words and no more than 60 characters. That is the industry standard. Do not try to be overly pedantic or clever: keep your subject line simple. Use a company address, not a free web email service.
3 Email Metrics You Need to Know Now
Clickthrough Rates
-
- Measures the percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links.
- Calculate by taking the number of total clicks and divide by the number of delivered emails and multiply by 100
- Example: 1,000 total clicks divided by 20,000 delivered emails multiplied by 100. In this example the answer is 5%.
Conversion Rates
-
- Measures the percentage of recipients who after clicking a link complete some type of desired action. Such as filling out a form or purchasing a product.
- Calculate by taking the number of people who completed the action, divide by the number of delivered emails and multiply by 100.
- Example: If 800 out of 20,000 recipients completed an action, divide 800 by 20,000 and multiply by 100. In this example, the answer would be 4%.
Email ROI
-
- Measures the return on investment by taking the total revenue and dividing it by the total spend.
- Calculate by taking the dollars made minus dollars invested in a campaign and dividing that number by dollars invested and multiply that number by 100.
- Example: If $1,000 is earned then subtract whatever campaign investment which in this case is $100. Divide that number by $100 and multiply the final number by 100 to arrive at your percentage. In this example, the numbers would look like this: 1,000 minus 100 = 900. Divide 900 by 100 which equals 9 and multiply 9 by 100 for a 900% return on investment. Email still has the highest return on investment over all other investments.
Is it worth it to send out 20,000 emails to a targeted, segmented email list? If you want a 900% ROI, you bet it is.
Creating email with high open rates that lead to high conversions can be a time-consuming task. We know small business has enough to do without trying to create and maintain email campaigns.
If you start with the who and focus on the what, where, when, and why, you should be well on your way to composing an email that produces the desired response from your readers.
To learn more about how to improve your marketing strategies, give us a call at 661-702-1310!
