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What are good email marketing open and click rates?

I'm a fan of using email marketing as part of a broader marketing plan as long as it is not abused and functions as a platform to share information the recipient will find valuable as opposed to shameless product pitches. 

There are lots of different options here including self-service ones like VerticalResponse (which I currently use), Constant Contact, and MailChimp as well as ones like Portland-based eROI and Nashville, TN-based Emma which integrate agency services along with the email capability.  The full list of options is very long (including Atlanta-based Silverpop & Seattle neighbor WhatCounts) and I know I am not doing it justice here.

The purpose of this post is to dig into what are good results from an email marketing campaign.  How many opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, etc. are actually good when compared to what is best in class?

I know what I have seen in my efforts and am happy to discuss one-on-one if you are interested.  Here is what I found after a few quick searches:

• Great chart from the folks at MailChimp with a breakdown by industry (small businesses).  The average of the averages (sorry mathematicians) pegs this around a 25% open rate with just over a 4% click rate looking across some 273M sent emails. Unsubscribes are pretty low at .36% while hard bounces (not a valid email) seem high to me at almost 6%.  People change jobs and email addresses go stale but I have not seen a result this high or it could be due an extended interval between sends.

• Good stats posted on eMarketer although pegging the high end of list size at 1000+ seems curious to me (my lists are always much larger than this and I hope yours are too).  Their citation of a report by MailerMailer puts the "worldwide" open rate at 12.5% at the end of 2008.

I'm not sure I am leaving you with what is best in class but at least this can function as a frame of reference.  I am not an email marketing expert by any means but believe in it and its responsible use for any organization.

Great ad from Motorola about aggregating content on a mobile device

This ad ran during the World Series and I thought it was a great take on the type of thing we are doing at Gist.  The ability to sift through an increasing amount of content, information, chatter, and other types of noise to get to the things that matter most. 

Blogging will change your life

Don't believe me?  Then listen to what Tom Peters and Seth Godin have to say about it.  Good friend Max Effgen at 12Sided posted this some time ago and I flagged it to share here.

It is short and captures the essence of why I started blogging and the fulfillment I get from doing it.  It forces you to more fully and thoroughly think through things, truly grasp why you believe the way you do, and structure those thoughts and beliefs for others to consume.  I write as much for myself as I do for others and am thankful to those of you who think my posts are worth reading and keep coming back for more.

Earn permission to respond

This is a great (and short) blog post by Seth Godin on the topic of being accessible and making it easy for people to initially contact you.  Think about the last time you wanted information or were looking to buy something.  Did you want to answer a bunch of questions or provide a lot of information about yourself?

Email contact is like a first date. If you show up with a clipboard and a questionnaire, it's not going to go well, I'm afraid. The object is to earn permission to respond.

Keep it simple.  Request an email address or make it easy for people to send you an email with some questions (and be sure to respond quickly!).  This is just the beginning of the discussion not the end.

Why Positioning Matters

Happy Labor Day everyone.  I thought a post on "positioning" was timely because not only is it something we are continuing to focus on and evolve at Gist but it also came up last week in one of my mentoring sessions as a NWEN Advisor.  Also, it is no small effort to get right so thought it appropriate to discuss on Labor Day.

What is positioning and why is it important (according to me)?

The positioning strategy is a competitively focused statement of what makes a company different and better than the competition.  It is a description of how prospective customers, partners, etc. should think of the company relative to the competition.  A fundamental of good positioning strategy is creating perceived differentiation in an area that is important and relevant to those audiences.  Since positions are “relative to the competition,” it is important to understand how competitors are currently perceived and how they are trying to position themselves.

How do I come up with it (not sure where I got this from originally, so apologies for no source reference)?

[Company Name] provides  [product or service category]
For [your beachhead target customer]
So they can  [product’s primary benefit].
Unlike [the product alternative]
We [key differentiator]

This is definitely an exercise about picking the right words but in order to pick the right ones you must understand the broader landscape and how companies operate within it.  In an early stage company this is not a one time effort that you complete and move on.  It is a constant and iterative process as you learn more about your customers and market and the difference between how you want to be perceived and are perceived becomes clear.

Marketing Mayhem

Over the past year plus, I have been working with a whole new set of tools to understand and reach customers/prospects/users.  This includes Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, blogs, blog comments and the associated technology to access and analyze what is being said and who is saying it.

Unlike mainstream marketing thinking, what I have been doing has cost very little money and utilizes new tools to reach people in the new places they are spending their time.  More importantly, the leverage in selling resides disproportionately with the buyer these days.  They have instant access to information about you, your competitors, and even the ability to connect with your current and former customers all without your help or involvement.  Understand this is reality and embrace it.

So, what should you do if you are trying to sell something, launch something new, or just expand market share within existing target market?  Set up and make use of a Listening & Engagement Framework.  Check out my previous posts on it to understand what the heck I am talking about.

I have been making extensive use of this type of framework at Gist and put together the presentation embedded here to highlight both what we have been doing as well as the thinking and assumptions behind it all.  Check it out and let me know thoughts and feedback.  One thing I have learned is that the rules are still being written and best practices emerge daily on the best way to use all this stuff as a business.

Marketing Mayhem - Can You Hear Me Now?

View more presentations from robertcpease.

Building an engagement framework

Apologies again for the slow posting recently.  Life and work got in the way a bit...

As promised some time ago, here is the second post about building a listening and engagement framework.  In my previous post on the listening framework, I detailed out my approach and several of the tools and applications I use to get pretty good coverage.  But, listening is only part of the equation.  When and how you engage based on what you hear is more important but also more complex.  I place these activities into the "Four Zones of Engagement" which are primarily defined by how much time it takes you to act on what you have heard.

 

How do you stay in the Zones of Amazement & Affection?  Apply dedicated resources and make use of tools like TweetDeck, BackType, CoTweet, Gist, Twitter, & Google Reader. 

Want to languish in the Zone of Indifference?  Set up a few Google Alerts and you'll be sure to stay there.

Does the Zone of Disdain sound appealing?  If so, do nothing and watch your competitors and new entrants eat your lunch by engaging your customers and prospects in a direct and meaningful way.

Differentiation

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July holiday and enjoyed great weather like we had in Seattle.  Every year, Kirkland has a big 4th of July parade complete with bands, floats from local businesses, and political candidates kissing babies.  The parade is preceded by a kids parade where children and their parents walk the parade route.  It is a site to see as wagons, strollers, bikes, and scooters make their way down Central.

We met up with some friends ahead of time and that is the reasoning behind my title for this post.  Good friend Nathan D'Ambrosia is a great software product manager that is looking for a new gig so he decided to take the opportunity to stand out and bring a bit of creativity to the job search.  The pictures below show his t-shirt which lays out his situation (front) and his credentials (back).  He even had a pocket full of business cards summarizing the same information with a link to his Linkedin profile.

He handed out a few during the course of the parade and definitely got a few comments about both the creativity and cleverness of the approach. 

I think this is a great example of how to differentiate from others.  It shows the creativity and determination of the individual plus makes for great conversation.

If you are looking for a rock star software product manager, let me know.  Or contact him directly - here's his Linkedin profile.

CoTweet is cool

I have been enjoying using CoTweet for the past couple weeks after pleading for beta access.  As I am the point guy on Gist’s beta program, I try to grant quick access to those who make the effort to reach out or make some noise about the product so was happy that after a couple of tweets I got access from the CoTweet guys.

My Twitter needs focus on the act & engage dimension of the aforementioned listening framework (I will post more broadly on that shortly).

I needed to main things from CoTweet:

1. Manage multiple Twitter accounts through a single interface
2. Some marketing capabilities in the product (list management, analytics, etc.)

CoTweet delivers on both allowing me to set up a couple accounts - @Gist & @RobertatGist in my case and use them together. 

One really cool feature of CoTweet is the ability to write a tweet and schedule it for sending at a later date.  Really helpful if you are promoting something or want to share the same info multiple times over a couple days.

I also like the fact that you can see analytics on the links you share (and can shorten through the interface).  How many clicks, where they clicked from, etc.  Cotweet also allows for searching and capturing query results as an RSS feed – which I can add to my Google Reader for easy review and action.

I look forward to continuing to use the product and to seeing what comes next.  I’m also a fan of Tweetdeck and their most recent release allows for both multiple account management and the ability to post to multiple accounts simultaneously.  It is a slick AIR application vs. Cotweet’s web-based one so we’ll have to see how the cloud vs. the client battle shapes up.

Building a listening framework

This two part post is about "listening" to what is being said on-line and the more complicated aspects of acting on something once you've heard it. I'll focus on listening first and will follow up with one on action & engagement here shortly.

So, what the heck am I talking about? You may be aware of this thing called the Internet and there are a lot of people on it. Not only are they consuming content, they are creating content with increasing frequency and ease. Yes, this includes Twitter, blogs, blog comments, and everything in between.

It sounds a bit trite at this point but there really is a conversation going on and you need to be listening to it in some way as part of your marketing efforts. It's not just about your product or brand but about what people need, what they are unhappy with, where your competitors are falling down, where a new entrant is eating you alive, or where one hater has decided to make it their mission in life to bring your product or service to its knees.

All of this plays out every minute of every day in as little as 140 characters in a Twitter status update.

A note of caution - it is loud so be prepared to turn the volume down a bit with tools, process and methodology.

Here is what I use and what I would recommend using as a starting point. I am sure there are other tools & techniques including one that might do all of this in one product. If it exists, please let me know.

1. Identify 'where' you'd like to listen - Twitter chatter, Linkedin Questions, news outlets, competitor's websites, blogs, blog comments, etc. I'd suggest anywhere you can although you will get some overlap.

2. Identify what you are going to listen for - keywords can create huge false positives especially if it is a frequently used word....like 'Gist.' One note here is that although unique names are easier for you to listen for, it is also easier for your competitors to keep tabs on you so keep that in mind during your next branding/naming session.
3. An RSS reader is your key interface (I use Google Reader)
4. Use Twitter Search to build searches on Twitter content and select "Feed for this query" in the upper left and drop it into your preferred RSS reader
5. Use Google Alerts and select to receive these keyword alerts as RSS feeds
6. Use BackType to monitor blog commenting content and enter search terms as above one by one and select Feeds->Search Results
7. Use Digg and search for keywords/themes then subscribe to these results as a feed
   

Also, check out Tweetdeck to watch Twitter posts (you can set up search terms in this app by clicking on the magnifying glass in the upper right).  The benefit of Tweetdeck is the ability to act on what you have heard by replying publicly, replying privately, or "retweeting" (sharing) someone's post.  More on action and engagement coming shortly.

This framework should give you pretty complete coverage of the on-line conversation and is a must have in any marketing plan.