Every day, most of us get a dozen or more B2C and B2B emails that don’t relate to our needs. It’s a constant flow of irrelevant messages that mostly never get opened. According to the 2020 US Email Benchmark Study published by CampaignMonotor, emails sent by US companies in 2019 obtained an average 17% open rate and an average click-through rate of only 2.5%. Certain markets such as Food & Beverage fared significantly worse with a click-through rate of just 1.10%.
There are other measurable insights that you should also be concerned with, namely opt outs and spam complaints. If you’re using a CRM with a marketing automation platform like SalesForce+Pardot or an email service such as MailChip, then you should be able to extract the names and dates of those contacts generating the opt out request. Don’t be surprised to see recognizable names in those reports, including valued customers.
So how do we fix that? Let’s talk about steps that can be taken to decrease opt out rates while also improving your open and click through percentages.
Matching the Message to the Client’s Interests
Segmenting your lists so that the content of the message is relevant to the person receiving the email is your best chance of keeping opt outs low and open rates high. What do we mean by that? Let’s say that you serve a variety of different industries with a wide array of different types of products. Some of those products only apply to one of those industries. In this scenario, an email blast about a sale on those specific products should only go to a very segmented, targeted list that applies to your message. You get the idea. This will add more work toward launching future email blasts, but it’s the right thing to do. Especially if your email campaigns are experiencing a high number of opt outs and spam complaints.
Exceptions to implementing segmentation would be a generic newsletter covering a wide variety of topics – and only sent to a verified subscriber base on a regular schedule. The other would be some type of breaking news (not a sale or special offer) that would apply to all customers and business partners.
Sensible segmentation of lists by the type of customer and product or service with a message that speaks to their needs and buying cycles will improve your customer’s experience with your company. We’ll discuss list segmentation, account-based marketing (ABM) and the use of marketing automation technology that can provide for creating dynamic smart lists in future articles.
Note: By law, businesses are required to remove all contacts that have opted out from receiving future email blasts. It’s the law to stop sending them emails unless they opt back in at a later date in time. Too many opt outs or spam complaints could also be cause for email technology providers like MailChimp and Constant Contact to temporarily suspend your account.
Contact us today if you would like to discuss your digital marketing needs and what’s happening with your email campaigns.
Guy Hanford
President
Vesteras LLC
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