At CEES (College of Energy, Environment and Sustainability), we do a lot of email campaigns. We send emails atleast thrice in a week to the different kind of leads we generate through our brand sites. Recently we did an email campaign which shot off the charts with respect to the open and click rate.
Image source: MailChimp.com
We sent the email to three different lists. It was for registering to a free Green Energy Course for a quarter, from one of the brands I am handling i.e. College of Energy, Environment and Sustainability. The three lists were (names changed): a) List a b) List b and c) List c. Take a look at some interesting insights from the campaign.
List a – this list got 42.3% unique open rate, 10.2% total click rate and the email open rate was 4.8% higher than the industry average
List b – this list got 64.9% unique open rate, 16.8% total click rate and the email open rate was 6.1% higher than the industry average
List c – this list got 52.6% unique open rate, 16.7% total click rate and the email open rate was a whooping 11.9% higher than the industry average!
So what did we do right to get these awesome results? Well, most of things were right really 🙂
1) The right offer – We offered a free Green Energy Course to our audience for an entire quarter and only for people applying before 30th September 2011. We got a total of 104 applications within two days (and still counting)…
2) The right course – We had conducted a survey to find out one of the most valuable courses required by professionals in the green energy industry. This specific course stood out in the entire survey and we thought of monetizing it only after initially offering it free of cots for an entire quarter and then charging for it, if the course got favorable results.
3) The right email subjectline – The email subject line read “You’ve Got Mail! And, This eMail Could Give You a Free Course in Green Energy!“. This not only had a great value proposition but also an effective insight into what was inside the email. Thus by only reading the email, one could understand that a) he/she might get a free course in green energy b) this course might be free only to those, who have received this email c) this might be one-time early registration offer
4) The right list – Not every email can be sent to every list. Some emails which are for an offer need to be sent only to the relevant lists. Remember, relevancy always matters. It does not make sense to get 50 people to open your email, if the list size is 2000+. If 50 people from a list size of 200 open your email, it signifies that your assumptions and predictions are almost bang on! We sent the email to the right list i.e. people who wanted more information about energy courses or who were interested in doing an energy course.
5) The right time – According to MailChimp, our email list manager, Tuesdays or Wednesdays are the best days of the week to send important emails related to product announcements, updates or offers. Check out this report to understand more about the Science of Timing your Emails. So, no prizes for guessing the day we sent our emails 😉
6) The right content in the email body – The subject of the email and the headline inside the email should almost be exactly the same. This helps the reader in connecting the email subject with the email content and maintaining the relevancy. Plus, if you can keep your corresponding website landing page headline similar to the email subjectline and the email headline then nothing works better!
7) The right number of Call-To-Action buttons: We had only two call-to-action buttons in the email. a) the link which led to the course description on the course webpage and b) the link which led to the application form on the website. Having more than two call-to-action (CTA) buttons, often confuses the reader and enables them a choice to take multiple actions. Remember, the more options you provide, the more distributed your desired results will be. To get a desired result, try to limit the number of options you are making available to the reader.
8) The right email format – We do not believe in loud email messages. Most of the times, we send, simple emails, with a very basic border and a contrasting CTA button. This helps us in communicating exactly what we want the reader to do. Some words like “Read the latest article“, “guest lectures“, “course information” etc are highlighted to emphasize on what we are offering. Having a simple email format and html often helps us in directly enabling the reader to notice the CTA button after entering the email.
These elements have really worked well for us, and I believe, it will be immensely useful to other email marketers as well. If used efficiently and effectively, these elements can really help you or your brand in getting the desired results from your email communications!
What else are you doing to communicate effectively with your leads?
Shriharsha Bhat's Weblog 