Emailified

Most B2B marketers wonder why their email response rates are so much lower than expected. I am sure you have been there too. I certainly have been there. Most marketers simply blame it on one or the other factor and move on to plan their next campaign. The problem is, that next campaign doesn’t perform any better. And rightfully so. You did not make any changes.  So you response rate decided to stay put too.

I think it is important to analyze why your response rate was so low and then act on it. There are really 3 key variables that you have to play with, A/B test and see how you can optimize the response rates.

• List: The quality of the list is a primary driver of email campaign performance. If you have a bad list, your response rates are bound to be worse. Working with a bad list is worse than shooting in the dark. You probably know that but you still buy some cheap low quality lists because that is all you have budget for and you are pressed to send out campaigns in hopes of generating leads. Open your eyes. Cheap lists are not going to cut it. If you are looking for good response rates, make sure that you build a list of contacts based on roles and specific titles that make up your audience. If you reach the right people, that is half the battle own.
• Deliverability: Right people is one part, reaching them is another. It sounds simple – you send an email, and the recipient receives it. How we wish this could be true. Spam filters, security filters and such others have make delivering an email a complex combination of science and art. While this means, good intentioned marketers now face real challenges in getting their emails delivered, without these we would all be left with unusable Inboxes full of spam. So to ensure that your email gets delivered is your next priority. This means that you must work with a email marketing provider, marketing automation vendor or an email service provider that has high deliverability rates guaranteed. This will ensure that deliverability is as high as it can get and it becomes less of a factor that affects your overall campaign response rates.
• Content & Interestingness: The final aspect that affects your email campaign response rates, and one that is completely within your control, is the quality and interestingness of the content of the email. And it all starts with the subject lines and ends with the content within the email. Sales centric emails perform badly and no matter what you write, your response rates will be low. The content that performs well is the one that appeals to and intrigues the recipient with its informational and educational value. Its important that you understand your prospects well to be able to create and cater content for their needs. If you hit the mark, response rates will sky rocket.

For lists and content, you can also A/B test a lot to find the combination that works the best. But getting these three foundational aspects right is critical.

Reactivating your dormant or inactive subscribers is an important issue on the minds of marketers. One critical aspect to consider when you look at your inactive is that the email subscribers you think are inactive may actually NOT be inactive at all. Here are the 3 reasons why:

1. Your subscribers may be opening the emails but and reading it everyday regularly but they may have images turned off on their email client or may be using a text based email client, due to which you just don’t have tracking of their opens. Without images, it is not possible track email opens.
2. Your subscribers may be reading your emails and perhaps calling your toll free numbers and doing business with you but in the email list they show no activity.
3. They may be loyal followers of your emails and reading them as much as they can, but they may not have had the time to respond to any of your call to action requests.

So its important to understand your inactives before treating them that way, and you could perhaps come up with an email appending or email verification project and a lead nurturing campaign that is focused on the inactives to be able to segregate them.