Newsletter Opening rate

Business owners and advertisers always aim for goals and results. When it comes to email marketing, achievement of the goal isn’t measured just by the number of customers who actually made a purchase following the mailing.  It's also measured by the number of people exposed to the message (and although they didn’t purchase, they have a healthy communication with the brand by opening and reading updates and content). An email marketing system provides data regarding the newsletter’s status (whether it was opened, deleted, did the customer click an attached link etc.), in order to help you decide whether to maintain or improve the current marketing strategy.

newsletter opening rate
The email marketing system delivery statistics allow you to track newsletter opening rate. The opening rate indicates how many of the recipients opened the mail. This is determined by several parameters all of which are measured by the system. However, there are several parameters that cannot be measured, so that the presented opening rate of the newsletter may be lower than the actual percentage of recipients who opened the mailing.

What is a good opening rate?
Research shows that the average opening rate of email marketing messages sent by large companies is approximately 30%. The opening rate for small businesses is between 20% and 25%. So if you sent a newsletter which reached 20%, you’re in good company. However, if you haven’t reached 20%, try to use the following explanations to understand how to improve your opening rate.

Reasons for low opening rates:

1.    Immeasurable parameters
The system considers a recipient as one who opened your mail only if he or she meets one of two conditions:
a.    The recipient clicked an attached image or link to open or download the image.
b.    The recipient clicked a link attached to the message (in this case they will also appear in CTR statistics).
Both of these conditions are pretty accurate parameters, but they’re not the only ones that effects the count. in some cases the recipient might have read the content on the body of the newsletter but chose not to click an image or a link. In this case – the recipient has opened the mail but is not included in the statistics.

The solution:
in order to get more credible data regarding the opening of email marketing messages you should encourage the recipients to click the image or the link by using a teaser which emphasizes that the image or link is interesting and important.

2.     Electronic mail sent directly to the Spam folder
These days, most e-marketers know the Spam Laws and spam words which will make any innocent newsletter seem suspicious. But sometimes even a completely “politically correct” newsletter can still end up in the Spam folder. This situation is usually caused when the recipient’s mail system doesn’t recognize the sender because they’re not in their contact list. The automatic directing of electronic mail to the Spam folder will make all of the efforts meant to persuade the customer to view the message useless, since the customer isn’t even aware to the fact that a mail is awaiting response.

The solution:
ask your recipients to add your email address to their contact list, so you will appear in their inbox as a legitimate contact
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3.    The recipients’ lack of interest in the brand
Having your recipients sign up and approve receiving newsletters from you is just the first step.   the next step is wining the customer’s heart and maintaining an exciting and rewarding relationship in order to maintain customers loyalty over time. Data shows that over 50% of email marketing messages sent from companies are deleted by their recipients and approximately a third of them request to be removed from the mailing list.
A customer, who; during their relationship with the brand; is disappointed with purchases offers or bored with the content, will not be interested in receiving further messages. For this reason, take note of specific customers who persistently haven't  been opening your newsletters. Try to identify the reasons and to renew their interest by fixing the issues that caused the customer to lose interest.

The solution -Trust relationship:
•    Don’t make promises at the registry point that you can’t keep later.
•    Send a new customer a brief introduction email so that you gain his awareness as a new contact in his or her contact list.
     United identity:
•    Create a similarity between periodical newsletters and periodical off-line campaigns.
•    Design each newsletter using a branded, impressive and professional template, which you can stick with for the long run.
     All in moderation:
•    Don’t flood the recipient with too many email marketing messages.
•    Send segmented messages which are the most relevant to the specific customer.
     Added value:
•    Write content which is interesting to the specific target audience.
•    Provide useful content such as a guide, recipe, interesting item or entertainment content.
•    Indulge the customer with benefits – let your list members feel favored by giving unique benefits to mailing recipients only.
 
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