How You Responded To My Email

A week ago, I sent an email to 1,588 people announcing my retirement from my previous business and offering a free gift to celebrate.

I thought it might be interesting to put my money where my mouth is and show you how my list responded to that email.

What To Measure

So come behind the curtains and take look at the statistics that I think matter. The Open Rate (how many individual humans open the email), the Click Rate (how many links are clicked on) and the Unsubscribe Rate (how many people unsubscribe from your list).

First, let's take a look at the industry standard for my industry (marketing). Mailchimp published the following results in 2010 and they're all we have so far.

So I should be aiming for an open rate of 18.79% or more, a click rate of 4.13% or more and an unsubscribe rate of less than 0.23%.

The Results

Out of 1,588 recipients, 224 bounced (meaning the email addresses no longer exist) and 382 of the remaining 1,364 opened the email. That's an open rate of 28.01%. Not bad.

Of those 382 that opened my email, 148 clicked on a link. That's a click through rate of 38.74%. So far so good.

Finally, 32 people unsubscribed, which is an unsubscription rate of 2.35%. A little higher than average. This is probably explained by the fact that this database has not heard from me for a while and the last time they did I was part of my previous company.

NB: I like it when people unsubscribe because if they don't want to be on my list, I don't want them. Chances are they are never going to be my customer and therefore I'm never going to be able to help them, so best we part ways.

The Analysis

Now knowing these stats is one thing, learning from them is another.

So what's the take-away?

The higher than average open rate means the subject line [Gift Inside] Help us celebrate! was appealing. No surprises there as it speaks to the recipient about them and offers them something for free. It's not about me or my products and services. The fact it was sent from Troy Dean “troy@troydean.com.au” also helped to established credibility as the email is from a real person not a brand or company.

The high click through rate can be attributed to two things. A free gift and a strong call to action. Actually 2 strong calls to action. One to my website and one directly to download the free gift. See the image below.

 

The Action

Perhaps most importantly is what to actually DO with this information. The simplest thing would be to send a follow up email to only those who downloaded the free gift encouraging them to read the e-book and take the next step.

My email marketing tool allows me to do that very easily.

 

Stay tuned for more insights.

And if you downloaded my ebook, stay tuned for a follow up.