Email Marketing

The email open rate refers to the percentage of people who have clicked on the email to open and read it. As with all marketing activity, it really does depend on your target audience and subject matter what the typical open rate will be. However, generally we quote a figure of between 10-25% as a good open rate. Different industries will have radically different figures, so it is worth doing some research into your particular industry so you have a benchmark to compare with.

Most emails are used to drive traffic through to make an enquiry or purchase on a website or other online platform. The click through rate refers to how many people have ‘clicked through’ on a hyperlink on the email and landed on your website.

In order to comply with best practice in email marketing, you must provide recipients with the option to unsubscribe. This means that they have opted out of receiving emails and no future email correspondence can be sent to them. Most email platforms have an automatic block on sending emails to people who have unsubscribed – so you don’t have to manage this process manually.

You will always get people unsubscribing, so it is important not to get too fixated on stopping it completely. However, if you are getting a high volume of unsubscribes every time you send out an email, you know that something is wrong. The most likely reason is that you are sending out emails too frequently and/or that the emails are not seen as relevant by your target audience. Sending out content that is purely sales orientated is also likely to be a turn off to consumers, so it needs to be intermingled with tips, information and advice.

There are several factors that affect open rate but it largely depends on the subject line of the email. Given the volume of emails people receive every day, you probably have only 3 or 4 seconds to create an impact with an email title – so you need to make sure you make it count. Most email programmes will have A/B testing functionality for subject lines so that you can test different approaches and draw conclusions as to which works best for you.

Email marketing works best when it is aimed at an audience who have opted in to receive communications from you. If you have a good customer database and permission from these customers to send out marketing communications, you should see this as a real asset to your business. The results will be far better than mailing out to a list you have bought in. Investing time and effort to build a relationship with these customers, and grow your mailing list, will pay dividends in the long term, so it is important to nurture these contacts and not bombard them with irrelevant information.