Research
– 11, November 2008
Conversion conversations
If a salesman only as good as his black book, then a customer database is only as good as its source. This article attempts to explain the foundation of a good email / SMS customer list and solidify's the statement that quality is definitely better than quantity!
Usually the launch of any website is followed by a mass email broadcast to a supplied list of recipients. Often we are asked, ‘what conversion rates should I expect from this list?' Now, this is a tough one, any list needs tested prior to assessing its quality or likely conversion. Let's look at the factors involved in a good quality list;
List Source
Identify the source of the mailing list, purchased list's are seldom high converters, below we look at some of the best and worst sources of customer email addresses.
Poor Converters
Purchased lists, these often contain simply hundreds of info@... Type addresses, only use as a last resort, their ‘opt-in' status is often questionable and could land you in trouble.
Lists containing users ‘out with' the targeted geographic location. Its pointless offering customer's products or services they cannot use. Target separate markets with separate lists where possible.
Avoid ‘Catch all' lists, ensure that if your campaign is ‘gender specific' or ‘subject specific' that your list has relevance. There is little point marketing lipstick to a male dominated list.
Don't use old lists, lists over 1.5 years old will degrade rapidly from a conversion standpoint, keep lists fresh by weeding out the ‘bounces' and the non-responsive email addresses on a cyclical basis.
Free Email provider lists, ISP supplied email addresses such as those from Yahoo, AOL or live.com are less likely to convert as these are more likely to be placed into a SPAM filter, often users have multiple free email addresses and only use one.
Strong Converters
Lists derived from an existing customer base are likely to wield the best conversions. Especially those which are derived from recent interactions with the customer base.
‘Niche Lists' convert well, data with more relevance converts at a higher rate. The sharper the focus of the campaign the higher the conversion will be. Market postage stamps to stamp collectors and click rate will jump from 4% to 20%.
Business based email addresses are more likely to convert and least likely to end up in SPAM. Segregate lists between free email providers such as Yahoo and business provided email addresses and analyse conversion separately.
Separate lists based on interests, or tag email address with additional data such as past purchases, locale, hobbies etc. These will allow you to more closely target your audience.
Top Tips
Email marketing follows trends as does any other marketing channel, the following tips will help plan your campaign more effectively;
1) Wednesday is the most popular open day for email campaigns followed by Tuesday. The weekend represents only 9.1% of opened emails, therefore best time to broadcast is generally early in the week, contrary to popular belief that Thursday is the weekly ‘sweet spot' due to it's proximity to the weekend.
2) Most popular time to broadcast a campaign is between 9am to 10am followed by 11am to 12pm. This is down to the 11am - 1pm slot being the most popular ‘open time' for all email campaigns.
3) Email remains the cheapest digital ‘cost per order' means of acquiring sales, followed by Affiliate programs, paid search and banner ads respectively.
4) 73% of users put email in the SPAM box based on the 'from' address and the subject line, care must be taken when ‘penning' these critical phrases. Make sure the reply-to address exists even if you will never use it, servers will check it's validity when deciding to junk the email or not.
5) Different ISP's have different rates of SPAM filtering most stringent of the big player are Exite, Gmail, Hotmail, MSN, Yahoo, AOL respectively. Overall block rates catch around 21% of all mail sent.
6) Text drives more email click through's than images reported most popular reasons to click through are as follows (percentages indicate users likelihood to click through);
Where products and services are featured: 54%
- Written Copy: 40%
- Subject Line: 35%
- Compelling offers, (e.g. discounts, free shipping) 33%
- A single large image: 12%
- Multiple smaller images: 9%
7) Click through rates improve by pacing email broadcasts, e-retailers reported a 10.3% click through rate when sending an email more than once a week, however if this frequency is dropped to 2-3 times a month conversion climbs to an impressive 24.7% on average.
In conclusion, email marketing still remains king of the ‘digital marketing landscape'; heed the rules, set out in this article for maximum ROI on your campaigns. Choose an email package which reports these conversions effectively, split your lists by relevance, choose your deployment time carefully and take care when considering your subject line and your campaigns stands the best opportunity to shine.
Author: Colin Walker
