Direct email marketing remains one of the most effective channels for reaching your target audience. Automation provides a way for you to make contact according to the level of engagement of your audience members, and you can personalize the message in a way not possible with other channels.
While direct email marketing is a great tool, you want to be sure you’re using it effectively. Incorporating the right set of metrics to measure how well you’re capitalizing on the potential for lead generation and sales growth is key. Here are the metrics you need to be measuring:
Open rate: The open rate gives you information about the percentage of emails that were successful in their delivery and then opened by the recipient. Open rates are helpful in determining how effective your subject lines are. If emails are delivered but never opened, it’s an indicator that the subject line is not engaging or isn’t capturing the relevance of the message.
Click-through rate: Measuring your click-through rate determines how many of your emails were effective at enticing your audience members to click on a link to land on your website. Measuring your click-through rate tells you some important information, including whether your content is intriguing, if the links meet the audience’s needs and whether the call to action was strong enough to compel the desired behavior.
Conversion rate: The conversion rate measures whether your email recipients completed a desired action, such as making a purchase or completing a contact form to receive more information. The benefit of measuring conversion rate is that you can determine your own definition for what counts as a conversion. Make sure it ties well to your goals for revenue growth or brand awareness.
Bounce rate: Determine your bounce rate to find out how many addresses are invalid or are blocking you because of spam filters. A sudden increase in your bounce rate may indicate that your strategy is off course from your normal, clean subject lines and other content.
List growth rate: Monitoring your list growth rate will help you see whether your direct email marketing campaign is on the right track with capturing new addresses. It can help you determine whether your contact form has too many or too few fields, and whether you are offering the right incentives to provide an email address.
Creating a direct email marketing campaign requires a focused and disciplined approach. Read more about how to generate leads and reach your target audience through your email marketing with our resources on SimpliContent. When you access SimpliContent, you can get all the information you need to build an effective email marketing campaign.