Email Marketing – Understanding Response Rates

View Your Email Marketing as a Conversation

Imagine you’re having a face-to-face conversation with a friend. You’re talking about something that fascinates you but you want to judge the interest of your fellow conversationalist. You analyze facial expressions, body language, and verbal response in an effort to see if your friend is interested, distracted, or entirely tuning you out. By monitoring their responses, you can adjust your conversation as needed and hold their interest. In the same way that watching your friend’s reactions helps you carry on a better conversation, monitoring email response rates help gauge the interest of your subscribers.

Keep Track of Interested Subscribers

First, take a look at how many people are reading your emails. Sending your emails through an email marketing application (like eConnect Email) will provided the statistics needed to fully understand and track the interest of your subscribers.  Once you’ve fully analyzed the reports of your campaign you can begin tailoring your marketing efforts based on the things that interest your subscribers.

Reach Uninterested Subscribers

Consider that friend you’re having a conversation with. If he or she seems uninterested you might try changing your tone, reevaluating your subject matter, or addressing your friend specifically, even asking, “Am I boring you?”

With your email marketing reports, look at who consistently ignores you. Isolate this group. Consider what might be turning them off. Look and see if you’re writing about topics that they may find uninteresting. If the recipient signed up to receive emails about snowboarding but you’re sending them emails about water sports this could be a reason for the disconnect. Finally, consider sending out an email asking for the group’s input. But remember, you’ll have to use an enticing subject line to make sure they actually open the email.

Know When You’ve Lost a Subscriber

Of course even the most careful and concerned conversationalist will always have people who don’t want to listen. By using an email service like eConnect Email, if someone chooses to move on and unsubscribe from your contact list, this will be automatically handled for you.

Remember, response rates are one of your most powerful tools for improving upon your email marketing efforts. Use these tools and you will find that your subscribers are more engaged which will have a positive effect on your bottom line.