Even if you are distributing
e-mail newsletters
to existing lists, we often hear people say that they don’t know what’s wrong or what needs to be improved. Effectiveness measurement is the solution to these concerns. Successful e-mail newsletters cannot be achieved without measuring effectiveness.
This time, we will introduce in detail the importance of measuring the effectiveness of e-mail newsletters and the indicators and KPIs that should be set.
Why is it necessary to measure the effectiveness of email newsletters in the first place?
Measuring the effectiveness of your email newsletter is essential for success. The purpose of e-mail newsletters is to continuously provide information to customers, acquire repeat customers, and encourage purchase intent, but the ultimate aim is to increase sales.
You must measure the effects of e-mail newsletters to see if they are increasing sales. Also, by measuring effectiveness, you can find out the reason if your email newsletter is not working.
By understanding whether e-mail newsletters are being delivered properly, whether they are being opened and read, and whether content that is of interest is being delivered, we can make improvements to areas that are bottlenecks. , you can expect results from your e-mail newsletter.
Main indicators/KPI elements set for effect measurement
There are five main indicators and KPIs used to measure the effectiveness of email newsletters: delivery success rate, open rate, click rate, CV rate, and unsubscribe rate. These elements require email delivery in HTML format.
E-mail distribution in HTML format can be done effectively and efficiently by using dedicated distribution tools and marketing automation (MA).
Switch Plus, a CMS/MA integrated marketing support tool that allows you to easily perform everything from email distribution to effectiveness measurement, has dedicated staff to support tool operations including MA operations.
Now, let’s take a look at the representative indicators one by one.
① Delivery success rate
This refers to the percentage of emails sent to registered addresses that are delivered. Delivery failures can be caused by temporary or permanent errors. Temporary errors can be caused by problems with the receiving mail server, but they can also be caused by sending an email that is too large.
A permanent error is “email address does not exist”, which could be because an incorrect address was entered, or the email address was deleted after leaving the company. If you continue to send to these addresses, the entire email may be marked as spam and end up in your spam folder.
②Open rate
The rate at which recipients open your email newsletter is called the open rate. Opening an email newsletter is the first action a customer takes. The general open rate for
BtoB
is less than 20%, but it varies depending on the email title, delivery frequency, and timing.
③Click rate
Click-through rate is the percentage of people who click on links placed within an email. Because they are the recipients who opened and clicked on your email newsletter, they have the potential to become potential customers.
④CV rate
The percentage of customers who complete an action desired by the distributor, such as purchasing a product or requesting information from an email newsletter, is called
rate. In addition, it is set when registering a form, requesting a quote, applying for a seminar, etc. It can be said to be the most important indicator when measuring the effectiveness of email newsletters.
⑤ Unsubscribe rate
E-mail newsletters are required to allow recipients to freely unsubscribe (opt-out). Therefore, you should regularly check the percentage of recipients who unsubscribe after sending your emails.
What are the points to improve each element?
Measuring effectiveness becomes meaningful only when you try to improve the goals, rather than just measuring the elements set in the indicators and KPIs of your email newsletter.
① Delivery success rate
To prevent the entire email from being recognized as spam, we will no longer deliver to non-existent email addresses. It’s also a good idea to check the validity of newly added addresses before sending for the first time.
② Open rate
In order to improve the open rate, you need to verify whether the subject line is of interest to the target recipient of the email, and whether the email is read at a convenient time and frequency. Specifically, try performing an AB test with multiple subject lines to see if they are opened at different times and frequencies.
③Click rate
In order to get people to read your email newsletter once they have opened it, you need to make the content of the email easy to read. You can intentionally shorten the body of the email and devise a route that directs you to a link for more specific content.
You can also expect to improve your click-through rate by placing a CTA (call-to-action) that makes people want to click, such as by displaying a link with a prominently colored button.
④CV rate
rate, which determines the success of an email newsletter, can be efficiently improved by performing steps 1 to 3 above, from sending the email to conversion. It is also effective to perform segmented distribution of email newsletters based on the attributes of the distribution list and the consideration phase.
⑤ Unsubscribe rate
To improve your unsubscribe rate, first review your delivery frequency. If you receive an email newsletter too frequently, there is a high chance that you will become displeased with it and stop receiving it. Also, if the unsubscribe rate increases for a particular email, it may be because the recipient and the content do not match.
summary
This time, we introduced the importance of measuring the effectiveness of email newsletters, setting specific KPIs and indicators, and ways to improve them. Rather than just sending email newsletters as they are sent, measuring the effectiveness and making improvements based on set KPIs and indicators will lead to increased sales.
To achieve this, it is essential to introduce an email distribution tool that can measure effectiveness. The cloud-based tool “Switch Plus” is a web marketing support tool that combines CRM and MA. If you have a customer list, you can easily do everything from sending emails to measuring effectiveness.
We are issuing a trial account below that allows you to try Switch Plus for free. Please try this opportunity.