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| Does Everyone Ignore Your Newsletter? |
| Posted: 4-05-2006 |
| Author: Matthew Coers |
As Internet marketers
we all know how important it is to have a successful newsletter
to help us keep in touch with our customers. But it can
be pretty frustrating to spend all those hours developing
content and campaigns only to have the program flop. Open
rates can dive into the single-digits and click-through
rates can fall to mere fractions of a percent.
So if this happens, what do you do?
First of all, don't panic. Usually, if you spend a few
minutes looking at your data you can identify the problems
pretty easily.
Determine Which Problem to Fix
Take a look at where your leads are coming from. If you
are purchasing lists from other websites or publishers,
make sure you segregate each source in your reporting
so you can measure the quality of each list. You want
to make sure you have a way of determining the quality
of a list source before you merge the purchased group
into your master list.
Also, if it has been around for a while, try segregating
your opt-in list into three groups by age:
* Under 6 months
* 6 months to 1 year
* Over 1 year
It is normal for open and click through rates to be highest
for the "Under 6 Month" category, and lowest for those
who have been on your list for over a year. However, there
should not be a significant drop off as people move from
one category to the next.
Look for anomalies in the data. Here are a few things
I look for when I'm troubleshooting a client's campaign:
* Is there a significant drop-off behind the first mailing?
If the first mailing that a recipient gets typically achieves
a 35% open rate, but the second has a 7% open rate, then
the problem is not with the list source, or the header
information (subject line, "From" address, etc.) it is
with the content of the newsletter itself. If the drop
off is 35% to 29%, then one might consider that to be
normal.
* Has there been a change in frequency? We all get busy,
and one of the first activities that can get forgotten
is the newsletter. Unfortunately, absence in the Email
marketing realm does NOT make the heart grow fonder. In
fact, a prolonged period of non-communication is one of
the leading causes of opt-outs.
* Are your articles relevant to the demographic? It is
a good idea to survey your house list periodically to
test your assumptions about their levels of expertise
and interest in different subjects.
Wake Up Your Sleepy Optin List
Look at how you approach the people who have subscribed
to your list. Remember that with email newsletters the
permission your subscribers have given you to send email
to them is not permanent; they can opt out at any time
if they lose confidence or interest in your newsletter.
More often than not, however, people don't actually opt-out.
They simply stop opening and reading your email. I call
these "sleepy" subscribers. They are getting your messages,
but since they are "asleep" they can't read them. Although
there's no way to know for sure, I would guess that your
"sleep" rate is probably about 4 to 5 times the size of
your opt-out rate. So your opt-out rate is an indicator
of your "sleep" rate.
It is vital to understand what your subscribers think
of your publication. Again, surveys are a great way to
get feedback on your program. You can also provide an
open link on each newsletter that asks for general feedback.
Very few people will take the time to provide feedback
on a feedback form, but you can bet that those who do
represent a large chunk of your audience. Take their feedback
seriously, and learn from it.
Five Steps to Improve Your Performance
Following are five steps that have always lifted the performance
of my campaigns.
* Get in touch immediately – From the moment someone signs
up for your newsletter, they start to forget you. If you
take three weeks to send something to them, then they
won't remember signing up and they will reject your email
as spam. Make sure they get an issue of your newsletter
(or an ebook, or a free report; something that is relevant
to them and has value) immediately after they sign up.
* Make it personal and entertaining – Email marketing
is a one-to-one communication, it is almost always best
to keep the tone personal and entertaining. Try telling
a few stories about yourself or your company. Let people
get to "know" you, and feel like an "insider" with your
company. This increases their personal equity in your
brand.
* Make all emails "high-value" – Every time you send an
email it should be valuable to the recipient, not just
to you. Straight sales letters with no "meat" can dampen
open rates for future mailings. Train your recipients
to view each email you send as a valuable piece of information
they cannot afford to miss.
* Test multiple article types – You can write all kinds
of articles, and depending on your industry and demographics
of your subscribers, they may prefer instructional and
how-to articles; others may prefer current industry events,
or breaking news. Test these out and see what works best.
* Test different formats – Try splitting your list and
send half your recipients an HTML newsletter and the other
half a "text-looking" email. Make sure that the "text-looking"
email really does have HTML in it, or else you won't be
able to track the open rates!
Keep Your Chin UP
All newsletters can experience a blow to their response
rates. If this happens to you, it is important to identify
the problems and fix them before you lose too much of
your list to opt-outs and list fatigue. Variety is the
spice of life, and it can "wake up" a sleepy list by injecting
some excitement. Make sure each communication you send
is high value, and provides something new. And keep the
lines of communication open so your subscribers can help
you improve the quality of your content.
Matthew Coers is an Internet marketing expert. His website,
ProfitChoice.com contains online courses designed
to teach entrepreneurs how to build a website and
make money online. Download his FREE Internet Marketing
report, 7 Days to Website Success.
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