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 Opt-in 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. Make sure
each communication you send is high value, and provides something new. And keep
the lines of communication open so your subscribers can help you improve the
quality of your content.
Comments