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Do Your Emails Get
Read?
By Stuart Ayling
With glossary of technical terms at end of article (this article updated March 2006)
Using email as one of your marketing tools is a no-brainer. Just about every business has the opportunity to use email marketing in an effective way. But there are definitely
‘good’ practices to use when sending email, and some practices you should avoid.
Recent research by email services firm eROI for Q3 2005 provides the following insights.
Micro mailers (with a list size under 5,000) had read rates that averaged slightly over 35% and click rates between 5% and 9%. Those results are well above the broad average of 27%
(open rate) and 4.4% (click rate). The weekends were the best time for
click-throughs, averaging 8% to 9% versus 5% to 6% for Tuesday through Thursday.
Use this link to
download the eROI report.
Some surveys report open rates (read rates) of close to 80% for niche in-house lists with highly targeted messages. That is the sort of response I have seen on a regular basis for my newsletter –
Marketing Advisor.
Better Tactics = Increased Response
Other data from MarketingSherpa.com (October 2005) indicates that marketers using
'advanced tactics' will achieve better click-through rates than marketers who aren’t using advanced tactics. This data shows that advanced marketers can expect
click rates of over 11% for two-thirds of the messages they send (versus only one-third of
messages sent by the less advanced marketers who achieve the same click
rate).
When looking at this type of data you need to be careful about its relevance to your business. Often the majority of data relates to Business-to-Consumer (B2C) lists. These are usually the huge lists with a high frequency of messages.
So if your company is in the Business-to-Business arena you need to think carefully about the impact for your particular situation. B2B lists are generally smaller and less frequent.
Eye-Tracking Shows Key Zones On Page
Another important factor in generating response from your emails is the appearance.
This does not mean that glamorous is good. But rather that the presence of pictures
can encouragers readers to read more. This is clearly shown by eye-tracking studies which have been used over the last few years.
See an example of an eye-tracking heat map below (showing a Google search
results page). The red areas indicate zones on the web page that received most eye contact, in contrast to the blue zones which received
less attention.
Two-Thirds of People May Not Be Listening
My observations of other survey results over the last six months or so tend to agree with the findings by the eROI study – that the average open rate is around 30%. That means two-thirds of people aren’t even opening your message.
Imagine standing in a room and making an announcement. Also imagine that two-thirds of the group ignore you!
But it may not be that bad.
The ‘open rate’ can be measured in different ways by different surveys. For example, is the message ‘opened’ when it appears in a preview pane, or just when the full message is displayed?
My gut feel is that the overall ‘view’ rate would be slightly higher than the open rate reported by various studies. But it is still quite low. Probably not even 50%.
So don’t rely on email alone to get your message across.
All service businesses need an integrated marketing strategy to ensure they are consistently reaching clients and prospects.
Unlike a product that may sit in front of the customer as a constant reminder of who supplied it, your service might be invisible until next time it is needed.
You have to stay in front of your clients so they don’t forget you.
Email is a great tool to use, but don’t put all your marketing eggs in the one basket. Increase the effectiveness – and reliability – of your marketing activities by including the opportunity to create a variety of touch-points with clients.
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Glossary of Technical Terms:
Click-through rate: The percentage of readers (who have already opened
your message) who click on links in your email.
Eye
tracking: A new way to scientifically measure precisely which page
elements a persons eye focuses on when looking at a web page, and how long
they look at each element.
In-house
list: A list of recipients developed from your internal business
records, customer service contacts, or from previous marketing efforts.
Not a purchased list.
Integrated marketing strategy: Using a combination of pre-planned
marketing tactics that create synergy with each other to multiply results.
Open rate
(or Read rate): The percentage of recipients who actually open (or
view) your email.
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