|
Email List Metrics
You'll need a handle on the size of your list, its rate of growth and the
nature of attrition. Your basic data collection should include:
· Total number of subscribers. The number of
people currently on your list who have agreed to receive mailings from you.
· New Subscribers. The number of people who
have opted-in to your list since your last mailing.
· Unsubscribes. The number of people who
have asked to be removed from your list since the last mailing (and whom you
have dutifully and graciously removed).
Ideally, your list is growing by leaps and bounds - an indication you are
bringing in suitable traffic and engaging interest. But unsubscribe rates that
increase by leaps and bounds indicate you're not meeting your readers' needs -
in which case it's back to the drawing board.
Nervous though you might get over unsubscribes, it's important to consider if
opt-outers were recent subscribers or people who've been around for a while.
You'll want to consider some possibilities:
· Is your list suffering from burn-out?
· Are you targeting appropriately?
· Have you made significant changes recently?
· Were the unsubscribers long-term, active
customers?
Until you get answers to these questions, you won't really know if the loss
was detrimental. Mark Brownlow reminds, "It’s quality, not quantity, that
counts. If you lose 10% of your readership by changing your newsletter, but your
impact and influence on the remaining 90% has improved tremendously, then the
loss is a welcome one.”1
Basic Email Campaign Metrics
These are the basic numbers you want to identify for your mailings. The last
two tell you the most about your conversion efforts.
· Number sent. The total number of emails
you sent. This could be different from your total number of subscribers if
you're segmenting your list for testing purposes.
· Number received. The total number of
emails that were delivered. Calculate this by subtracting the number that
bounced back from the total number sent.
· Bounce Backs. The total number of emails
that were rejected and not delivered. Email can be rejected because the
email address is no longer valid, because a server filtered it out, or
possibly because the receiver's mailbox was full and over quota (this often
happens when you send email over the weekend to free email accounts such as
Hotmail and Yahoo).
· Open Rate. The total number of emails that
were opened divided by the total number of emails delivered. These results
are only accurate in HTML emails.
· Response Rate. The percent of unique
readers who clicked on unique links embedded in the email. You can calculate
a response rate for a unique link in several ways: the number of
people clicking on the link divided by the number of emails
o opened.
o delivered.
o sent.
You can also calculate response rate on a global level using the number
of individuals who clicked on any link. It's less important which way
you calculate the metric, more important that you calculate it the same way
every time.
The Venerable Open Rate
Open rates get lots of press, but do you know what your open rate is
really telling you? Quite simply, the number measures how many of your HTML
emails registered as opened. Does it mean the opened email was read? No. Does it
indicate the recipient even skimmed the first line of the opened email? No. If
we continue in this vein, all we can say for certain is that all emails that
were read were opened. Who needed a number to tell us that?
So much for the open rate? Hardly. Look at it from the conversion point of
view. Every good email communication should start by focusing on one action:
persuade the recipient to open it. When the recipient opens that email, you have
your first successful conversion. And once the mail is opened, the recipient is
primed to move to the next micro-action in the conversion process.
Here are some of the factors - all of which the recipient evaluates before
committing to that very first click - that affect open rates:
· Does the recipient recognize the sender?
· Does the recipient acknowledge a relationship
with the sender?
· Is this relationship valuable to the recipient?
· To whom is the email is addressed?
· To which email account is the email sent?
· Does the recipient recognize where the sender got
the address?
· Is the email personalized in a way the recipient
understands and accepts?
· Does the subject line matter to the context of
the relationship?
· Does the subject line tell them something they
need to know?
· Does the subject line arouse their curiosity?
· Does the subject line speak to an emotions-based
need?
· Has the mail been sent at the best time?
Everything that goes into getting a recipient to open an email constitutes a
first test for the successful implementation of
AIDA.
Did you grab attention, arouse an interest, stimulate desire and provide a call
for action? You know the answer is no if the email isn’t opened.
There's a wealth of information in these metric babies. Just keep in mind my
sacred metrics rule: a number is a number, but a trend is a thing of beauty. You
can know very little about what is happening until you know if you are doing
better or worse over time. So start a long-term relationship with some pretty
neat numbers.
---
1 "Keeping The Key." Mark Brownlow, 2001.
Free Your GROK
Left, right, left, right. Nope. We're not gearing up for a military review.
We're going to talk about your brain and how you write to the "heart" of the
brain, so the "mind" of the brain will follow. Why? Because however much you
humans rationalize a buying decision, you always
make it based on emotions.
So creep past the security guard of the analytical, logical, linear,
give-me-the-facts left brain. Speak to the emotional, intuitive dimension every
human possesses and relies on - write to the right brain. And then listen to the
fabulous tune your cyber-cash register can sing … Ca-ching, Ca-ching, Ca-ching!
We know a lot about your brain. We know it has two hemispheres - left and
right - and we have a pretty good map of what goes on in the left brain, with
its centers for sensory input and associated memory, motor coordination,
planning, judgment, and emotion. We say it's the seat of logic, objectivity and
details. We know less about the map of the right brain, the seat of intuition,
subjectivity and big pictures. But we know the left brain is always checking
things out with the right brain. Just as the child glances at the parent for
approval she's on the right track.
Now hear this: Human persuasion is a right brain process. To persuade
effectively, you must let your emotional hair down and snare your prospects by
singing the right brain's song.
How to do that? I'll give you some pointers my dear friend
Roy Williams,
one pumped-up right-brain dude, shared with me on how to free your Grok!
Ok, so he's got a thing for beagles instead of Martians, but you’ll get the
picture…
Just Do It
First, don't be afraid. Just write something. Anything. If it's worth doing
at all, it doesn't matter if you do it badly at first. You'll get better at it
along the way. It's called practice. We all gotta start somewhere and it's a
heck of a lot better than being stuck in analysis paralysis!
The Flow of the Process
Don't even dream of beginning at the beginning. Instead, begin at the end.
Decide what you are trying to accomplish - the ultimate purpose of the
communication - so you know where and how it needs to end. Remember Alice?
`Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
`I don't much care where--' said Alice.
`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
(Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
How many movies have you seen that have a great plot, interesting characters,
thoughtful dialogue, and the whole kit and caboodle go down the drain in a lousy
ending? What a disappointment. And the left-brain stomps in to take charge,
discounting all that came before. Knowing where to end is that important!
When you've got your end, you can begin. Where? Anywhere. Pick a word and go.
The more unusual the better. If you're stuck, open the morning paper, place your
finger on any word, think relevance and where you are going, and voila!
You’re on your way.
Suppose you've got a really cool computer gadget that allows dial-up users to
surf at super-sonic speeds. Start your email announcement using the word
"behead" (see below for a solution one of our Future Now guys came up with).
What to Leave Out
Much as you know and love what you do, it's easy to get trapped trying to
convey everything in one fell swoop. You need to leave stuff out. First, folks
can only maintain their interest for so long. Second, when you tell them
something they already know, you bore them (see the left-brain marching in).
Third, the greatest magic is often present in what is left unsaid. Roy Williams
says: "Speak to the customer in the language of the customer about what matters
to the customer." And the unsaid magic? Think iceberg: one-eighth above water,
seven-eighths below, but nobody would mistake what it is.
End, begin, omit. Got it? Now revisit some of those ideas about
revving up your writing and start writing "right."
Go on, free your Grok!
---
"Behead?" He puzzled for the briefest moment. "You've beheaded the monster of
frustration. You’ve just installed our gadget and, suddenly, surfing the web
doesn’t take forever."
|
