Does Everyone Ignore Your Newsletter?
As Internet marketers we all know how important it is to have a successful newsletter to help us keep in touch with our customers. But it can be pretty frustrating to spend all those hours developing content and campaigns only to have the program flop. Open rates can dive into the single-digits and click-through rates can fall to mere fractions of a percent. So if this happens, what do you do? First of all, don’t panic. Usually, if you spend a few minutes looking at your data you can identify the problems pretty easily. Determine Which Problem to Fix Take a look at where your leads are coming from. If you are purchasing lists from other websites or publishers, make sure you segregate each source in your reporting so you can measure the quality of each list. You want to make sure you have a way of determining the quality of a list source before you merge the purchased group into your master list. Also, if it has been around for a while, try segregating your opt-in list into three groups by age: * Under 6 months * 6 months to 1 year * Over 1 year It is normal for open and click through rates to be highest for the “Under 6 Month” category, and lowest for those who have been on your list for over a year. However, there should not be a significant drop off as people move from one category to the next. Look for anomalies in the data. Here are a few things I look for when I’m troubleshooting a client’s campaign: * Is there a significant drop-off behind the first mailing? If the first mailing that a recipient gets typically achieves a 35% open rate, but the second has a 7% open rate, then the problem is not with the list source, or the header information (subject line, “From” address, etc.) it is with the content of the newsletter itself. If the drop off is 35% to 29%, then one might consider that to be normal. * Has there been a change in frequency? We all get busy, and one of the first activities that can get forgotten is the newsletter. Unfortunately, absence in the Email marketing realm does NOT make the heart grow fonder. In fact, a prolonged period of non-communication is one of the leading causes of opt-outs. * Are your articles relevant to the demographic? It is a good idea to survey your house list periodically to test your assumptions about their levels of expertise and interest in different subjects. Wake Up Your Sleepy Optin List Look at how you approach the people who have subscribed to your list. Remember that with email newsletters the permission your subscribers have given you to send email to them is not permanent; they can opt out at any time if they lose confidence or interest in your newsletter. More often than not, however, people don’t actually opt-out. They simply stop opening and reading your email. I call these “sleepy” subscribers. They are getting your messages, but since they are “asleep” they can’t read them. Although there’s no way to know for sure, I would guess that your “sleep” rate is probably about 4 to 5 times the size of your opt-out rate. So your opt-out rate is an indicator of your “sleep” rate. It is vital to understand what your subscribers think of your publication. Again, surveys are a great way to get feedback on your program. You can also provide an open link on each newsletter that asks for general feedback. Very few people will take the time to provide feedback on a feedback form, but you can bet that those who do represent a large chunk of your audience. Take their feedback seriously, and learn from it. Five Steps to Improve Your Performance Following are five steps that have always lifted the performance of my campaigns. * Get in touch immediately from the moment someone signs up for your newsletter, they start to forget you. If you take three weeks to send something to them, then they won’t remember signing up and they will reject your email as spam. Make sure they get an issue of your newsletter (or an ebook, or a free report; something that is relevant to them and has value) immediately after they sign up. * Make it personal and entertaining: Email marketing is a one-to-one communication, it is almost always best to keep the tone personal and entertaining. Try telling a few stories about yourself or your company. Let people get to “know” you, and feel like an “insider” with your company. This increases their personal equity in your brand. * Make all emails “high-value”: Every time you send an email it should be valuable to the recipient, not just to you. Straight sales letters with no “meat” can dampen open rates for future mailings. Train your recipients to view each email you send as a valuable piece of information they cannot afford to miss. * Test multiple article types: You can write all kinds of articles, and depending on your industry and demographics of your subscribers, they may prefer instructional and how-to articles; others may prefer current industry events, or breaking news. Test these out and see what works best. * Test different formats: Try splitting your list and send half your recipients an HTML newsletter and the other half a “text-looking” email. Make sure that the “text-looking” email really does have HTML in it, or else you won’t be able to track the open rates! Keep Your Chin UP All newsletters can experience a blow to their response rates. If this happens to you, it is important to identify the problems and fix them before you lose too much of your list to opt-outs and list fatigue. Variety is the spice of life, and it can “wake up” a sleepy list by injecting some excitement.
Direct Email Marketing Keeps You Linked To Your Customers
According to the direct mail marketing definition: “It is the solution to a very big problem for online retailers.” Ask anyone looking at the traffic reports for their online store. They will tell you that nothing drives them crazier than getting someone to their site (either naturally or through an advertisement) and then seeing them leave. They’re gone into the abyss that is the online marketplace, possibly never to return. At this point, they’re pretty much gone. This represents another lost customer, lost revenue, and increased frustration. If only there was some way you could stay linked in with that customer. You know they had some interest in your offering (after all, they ended up at your site in the first place). And maybe their next trip is the one that converts. Introduce an email direct marketing solution as part of your strategic mix. Also, you might be able to lure those lost patrons back. It’s a proven fact that it can take up to 6 touch points before a customer trusts you enough to make a purchase. Are you planning on achieving all 6 touch points on one visit? That is a very ambitious goal. Chances are you’ll get some touchpoints on the first visit, but those are only the first steps. You can easily add a signup box to your website from any major email marketing company and collect visitors’ addresses. Once you have that, it’s a path to getting the necessary touchpoints to seal the deal. Once you have a person’s permission to contact them (remember, do not spam. Spamming will hurt your business in the long run!) you can easily create snazzy email promotions to get them back to your site. Whether you’re selling T-shirts, office furniture, or DVDs, you know that certain deals just can’t be passed up. Why not put one of those deals in front of your customers and get their mouths a little wet. Even if it’s been weeks since they visited your t-shirt site, for example, if you offer a buy 1 shirt, get 1 free deal, you’ll see an instant spike in traffic and a boost in conversions. Reaching out to customers has always been the role of direct marketing, but now, with emails, it all happens electronically. Email Direct Marketing is a powerful tool that can boost your sales. But don’t expect that to happen without a little effort on your part. You need to take the time to understand your customers, know what interests them, figure out how to pique their curiosity, and make an offer based on all that. The more you target your emails effectively, the greater your response rates will be. And the faster people will come back to your online store. The online retail marketing place is fiercely aggressive and there are tons of competitors just a click away from your site. You need to outperform the competition by making sure your store is in front of the customer a lot more. With direct email campaigns, you can get your store information and special offers right in your inbox. You will ingrain your online brand in their minds. So that come purchase time, they’ve racked up enough touchpoints that their decision is easy. Direct email marketing is a gateway to building relationships with your customers. It will make them want to buy from you. By staying linked with your customers, you will develop an edge, because your offers will extend beyond your website and into the inbox of potential buyers.