As my business depends increasingly on building online relationships based on trust and client needs, I'm taking time to reconsider my approaches to email. Like many communications pros, I shifted my focus to social networking as the industry worked to get ahead of the curve a couple of years ago. Going into 2011, I'm rethinking my marketing mix, and the word of the year is "integration."With integration in mind, it's time to take a second and third look at my good old, taken for granted friend, email. Best emails are short, scannable, action-driven. Done well, they work, at a fraction of the costs of direct "snail" mail or dinosaur era fax machines. And my assumption is, that if you've gotten this far, you already have an email list management tool at work in your business. (If not, I strongly suggest you get one.)
So, where do I place my attention to figure Return on Investment (ROI)? Here's the short list:
- Open Rate: What percentage of messages were opened?
- Bounce Rate: What percentage of messages were undeliverable?
- Unsubscribe Rate: What percentage of recipients asked to be removed from the list?
- Click Rate: What percentage of readers were interested enough to click a hyperlink? In what links did the reader show the most interest?
- Conversions: How many sign-ups did your "free taste" earn? Did your readers forward your information to a friend or a social network? How many sales resulted from your campaign?
If my results aren't what I hoped for, I change it up, paying special attention to the subject line, which directly impacts the open rate; the click rate, which indicates reader interest; and the conversion rate, which tells me my service has value to the audience. Aren't value and service really what it's all about?
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