The email marketing chain

Take a look at the total number of recipients who clicked on at least one link in your last email. Now compare that with the total number of emails sent. What percentage clicked?

For most people (including me), the answer is likely less than 15%.

Think about that. We have over 85% of subscribers not clicking on email they explicitly asked to receive.

Over 85%.

Doesn't that strike you as odd? A missed opportunity?

Most are not unsubscribing. Or hitting the spam button. So why aren't they clicking? They sign up for something, you send it, they don't click...strange.

Something is going awry in the chain of events between the marketer clicking on the send button and the recipient clicking on an email link.

To solve the problem, and get more people clicking, you need to know three things:

1. What are the events that make up this chain?
2. How can you tell which part of the chain is failing you?
3. What can you do about it?

Let's begin by identifying the links in the chain. These are the five steps I'd like to focus on:

Delivery is about actually getting the email in front of the recipient in the first place. Which means negotiating delivery hurdles at the macro (ISPs, webmail services, corporate IT filters) and micro level (individual settings at the email user level).

Recognition is about ensuring that the recipient identifies the email, ideally through recognition of the sender or list.

Recognition triggers positive memories of past experiences with that sender's messages, brand or on/offline presence. In other words, it labels that message as unworthy of instant banishment to the spam or delete folder.

Pre-interest is about communicating enough immediate information to ensure the recipient pays closer attention to the message and wants to explore the content in more depth.

Interest is about the actual content itself, and its ability to hold that attention, excite interest and create a desire to take further action.

Interaction is the final step in the chain, where the email provides the right outlet, tool or environment (usually in the form of a call-to-action and link) for the recipient to actually take that further action.

When results need improving, a common (and admirable) reaction is to look for ways to send more relevant, valuable, timely email.

But given the above, it's clear there's even more to it than that. A message which fits the needs and interests of the recipient NOW can still fail if the email isn't recognized in the inbox. Or doesn't make it to the inbox. Or makes it hard to find a link to click on.

Clearly we need to find ways of identifying the actual source of our problem before we can take specific action to improve success. We'll begin that task next week. But before you go, two more critical points.

1. Email marketing works. Imagine how much undiscovered potential still remains, given that we're only getting clicks from under 15% of the audience for each individual email.

2. The email marketing chain actually goes on further. A click is itself just part of the chain that leads to some event that truly defines the success of your email (a download, a sale, a registration, a pageview, a donation, etc.)

But all that happens outside of the immediate email environment, which is why we'll conveniently ignore it for the moment...!

Permalink | December 05, 2008 | 3 comment(s)
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3 Comments:

Thanks for these ideas which have certainly got me thinking about about ways to make my email marketing more effective.
By Paul Simister, on 16 December, 2008

My pleasure Paul!
By Mark Brownlow, on 17 December, 2008

Curiosity Killed the cat! We've demonstrated with our sendings that if you put a video shape at the emaling, click rate is better
By Jorge, on 19 December, 2008

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