Most of you use some sort of platform for your email marketing efforts. Whatever software platform you use, it should provide you with basic reports of analytics for each email campaign you deploy.
Have you ever looked at them? If you haven't, you're not alone.
Depending on the platform you are using, some of that data isn't as easy to find and interpret as other data reports. You don't need to get caught up in all the numbers, but you do need to at least consider some of those numbers.
There's really only four metrics you need to be paying attention to. Take a close look at the email marketing metrics that matter for your winery:
Open Rate
An average open rate depending on your industry is about 14-22%. The wine industry is an exception. Open rates for wineries are on average 26%.
What does this number indicate?
There are two major factors you should consider when looking at your open rate. The day and time you sent your email and the title.
First let's look at the day and the time. Think about the content of your email. Is it light and better suited for the weekend? Or business oriented and insightful and will make for good reading on your subscribers' morning commutes? Consider when the most email comes into YOUR inbox and what YOU open when.
The second thing to look at is your subject line. Is it OVER-selling the contents of the email? I.e. are you using all caps and six exclamation points? Chill out. Try to create a subject line that hooks your subscribers with a question or a "secret." Another effective approach is to be blunt; tell subscribers EXACTLY what will be found in your email. I.e. "Get a discount on all of our Rose for July."
Click Through Rate (CTR)
An average CTR is about 2-5% depending on your industry. Again, wineries are on the higher side averaging about 5%.
What does this number indicate?
If you're CTR is below average, this means your call to action in your email is either not compelling enough or is buried.
Your email should have a clear objective. Is it to download a coupon? Go to a recent blog post? Download an ebook? Buy a new product?
Whatever the goal of the email, the call to action should be clearly associated with the email copy and prominently displayed in the email.
Furthermore, it should be the ONLY call to action in the email. That doesn't mean you should only put one link in your email. In fact, I suggest putting multiple links to the ONE desired destination throughout the email.
Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is generally a good indicator of how current your email marketing list is. This number should be very minimal- below 1%.
What does that number indicate?
If it's above 1% you might want to consider if your list is out of date or bought.
DEFINITION: A hard bounce is an email address that no longer exists, has an error or has been blocked by a spam filter. A soft bounce means that an email address is temporarily unavailable either due to a full inbox or an away message on that subscriber's inbox.
Generally your email marketing software will continue to try to send to this email address until several failed attempts have occurred.
Unsubscribe Rate
Obviously, your unsubscribe rate would ideally be 0%. Try to keep this number below 1%.
What does this number indicate?
Not everyone is going to love all of your content so understand that you will have some unsubscribes. That's normal.
If it's higher than 1 % you may be emailing too frequently OR not enough. People will just as quickly unsubscribe if they don't feel connected to your brand as if they are getting too many emails. Try to find a happy medium.
If you test out different headlines, times, calls to action, etc. and you are still seeing high unsubscribe rates, it might be wise to take another hard look at your list(s). Are your email marketing lists segmented? Or are you just emailing everyone on your list the same content?
Like with most marketing tactics the number one thing to consider when setting up your email marketing campaign is the objective of sending the email in the first place. And if you can't come up with one, don't send the email!
Pro Tip: Don't send a newsletter just to send an email.Click Here for some suggestions on writing emails that convert.
I'm sure you can think of tons of great information/deals you want to let your wine subscribers now about. Keep them informed, but happy, subscribers!
Interested in learning more about email metrics and analytics in general? We'd love to talk to you! Click the link below.