An integral part of marketing strategies, email marketing has become essential. The number of emails sent each year continues to increase. It is therefore a channel highly appreciated by contacts, whatever your persona. In B2B as in B2C, these are real strategies to work on. What is it, how can you use it in your strategy and what can be expected from this means of communication? I explain everything in this article!
What is a newsletter?
Definition
By definition, a newsletter is an email sent periodically to a mailing list, notably with the aim of providing information about the brand. This may include information about the brand, the brand’s development, or related topics.
Example
In practical terms, an organic grocery store can send a newsletter to highlight its new products, the development of the store chain, or to share seasonal recipes.
The statistics you should know to evaluate your email campaigns?
Figures
Important newsletter statistics should be monitored closely. The open rate, click-through rate, click-to-open rate and conversion rate in particular must be analyzed after each send. The first corresponds to the number of emails that are opened, and it can be supplemented by the deliverability rate, which indicates the rate of emails that were successfully received. The click-through rate measures the number of clicks inside the email. The click-to-open rate links the open rate and the click-through rate. Lastly, the unsubscribe rate measures the number of contacts who ask not to be contacted anymore following this message. In some cases, the conversion rate can also be studied. To help you, here are some average figures. Be careful, however: average figures also differ from one sector to another.
|
B2B |
B2C |
|
|
Open rate |
14.2% |
29% |
|
Click-through rate |
3.5% |
4.2% |
|
Click-to-open rate |
Between 10 and 20% |
Between 10 and 20% |
|
Unsubscribe rate |
0,25% |
0,18% |
My newsletters are not working: what should I do?
Your rates do not match your expectations? Have they suddenly dropped? Here are some tips to react to a decline in an indicator.
If the deliverability rate is not satisfactory, your mailing list needs to be cleaned. It certainly contains old email addresses.
The blunders to avoid to increase attention : your open rate is not up to your expectations. You therefore need to improve your contacts’ attention. To start, check that your subject line is not overloaded with emojis, does not seem misleading, and does not contain spam words. Make sure to personalize it, by adding your contact’s first name for example. Then, you can implement an A/B test to find the wording that leads to a good open rate.
If your click-through rate or your click-to-open rate is not good, check that your buttons are visible and attractive. Next, ask yourself whether the content of your email matches the subject line. Indeed, if you choose a book about birds based on its cover, but the inside is full of cooking recipes, you will quickly close it again. It is the same for your emails.
The unsubscribe rate is worrying when it exceeds 1%. The most frequent reasons are:
- the content of the newsletters disappoints your contacts
- the frequency of your emails is too high
Email marketing software
To send newsletters that convert, it is important to equip yourself with email marketing software. For this, there are many tools, more or less powerful.
The essential points to consider when making your choice are:
- ease of use
- cost per contact
- the ability to personalize
- the different features for creating emails
- the technology used to guarantee email readability
Indeed, email builders and marketing automation are sometimes linked. This allows for more features: organization and automation of emails, and personalization in particular.
Deliverability is also different. With marketing automation, the sending IP address benefits from better open and click-through rates, which allows your emails not to be classified as spam or even in the Promotions tab, for example!
So, between an email marketing solution and marketing automation, what will you choose?
Here are all the keys to successfully implementing your newsletter and ensuring its effectiveness. By choosing the right software, the right strategy and the right mailing list, you have the 3 key points for a successful newsletter. Then all you have to do is monitor your statistics and adapt!
