Listrak: One To One Newsletter
Spring Cleaning: Time to Re-Evaluate Your Email Marketing Program?
With warmer weather on the way some marketers may want to consider giving their email marketing program a spring clean up. I’ve compiled three actionable ideas for anyone currently engaged in email marketing that is looking to give their results a boost.
1. If you are not currently using Listrak,
re-evaluate how you’re deploying your campaigns
Email marketing technology has evolved rapidly within the past few years. The main drivers for this technological evolution have been deliverability challenges, regulatory compliance and improvements in tracking and targeting. Despite the improvements in email marketing technology, many firms continue to deploy their email campaigns from in-house systems that have not been upgraded or otherwise tuned for today’s demanding deliverability challenges. Because many in-house email marketing systems fall short of performance and deliverability goals, email service providers (ESPs) have come into favor with firms seeking the highest deliverability and performance from their email marketing efforts. An ESP can act as your trusted partner in helping you achieve your desired goals and outcomes.
Of course Listrak users are already working with a trusted ESP. Listrak customers enjoy the benefits of powerful technology and a team of deliverability experts working on-call for any issues that may arise.
2. Freshen up your content mix
Because email marketing is an extremely cost effective communications channel, marketers are able to communicate more often via email than other direct marketing channels. This can lead to unforeseen side effects if email marketers do not keep their frequency and content mix in check.
Savvy email marketers will want to be sure that they are providing relevant content that is fresh and inviting. A tell tale sign of a stale content mix is declining open and click through rates. If the measure of success of your email marketing campaign is driving traffic to your website, you’ll want to make sure that the content you are providing engages your user base to click through. Keep in mind that most recipients use the subject line of an email as a measure of whether or not they will open your message.
The good news is that on-line marketers have a bunch of cool interactive mediums by which to provide fresh content. Some of those new mediums include content from blogs, podcasts, webcasts, streaming video as well as webinars.
3. Maximize the shelf life of an email campaign
One of the great aspects of email marketing is that performance data in the form of messages opened and links clicked come immediately. While email marketing can provide immediate results, it’s important to understand that email has a limited shelf life. In a recent study, our research group looked at 2000 individual email campaigns sent to 17 million recipients. Over 71% of the clicks occurred in the same day that the email campaign was deployed. The click through rate continued to fall up to the seventh day after the email campaign was sent, when only 1% of clicks occurred.
This data shows us a few things. First, it shows that one of the most important choices you make is the day and time to send your message. I recommend staying away from deploying your campaigns on Tuesdays and Thursdays as everyone seems to be mailing on those days. Mondays between 10AM and 3PM seem to be getting the highest response rates from the research that I’m seeing.
The second finding from our study showed that 9% of recipients took action after one week from the initial campaign deployment. This information indicates to me that marketers may want to include information within their campaigns that continues to be relevant – even after the campaign is not. This content may include contact information for a recipient’s sales representative. For email marketers promoting a live event or webinar, providing links that will contain post-event materials such as the event recording or powerpoint slides might help extend the shelf life and boost your overall return on investment.
Is it time to spring clean your email marketing program?
The email marketing experts at Listrak can help. Contact them today at 717-627-4528 or visit www.listrak.com.
Listrak 3.1 Released
We have released our first update to Listrak 3.0 since our launch last October. This release includes several enhancements to Listrak including updates to the suppression list functionality, export wizard and graphing areas. Additionally, the bounce processing system has been completely rewritten and enhanced.
We have produced a Listrak 3.1 Webcast as well as published the full release notes for Listrak 3.1. You can find these two items in the News section once you log into your Listrak account or contact a Listrak representative at 717-627-4528.
New Website
Our marketing team was busy over the past few weeks putting the final touches on our new website. In addition to a new look and feel, you will also find new content areas such as our series of Podcasts and Webcasts.
