Posted by: Janessa Seewald, Account Manager

Third party lists or internal database? How often? What day of the week and time of day? What results can I expect to see (open rate, click-through rate, conversion rates, etc.)? Marketers face many questions when planning, implementing and managing an email program. Here’s your chance to get some answers. Post any questions you have in the Comments area, and a qualified online marketing expert from 90octane will be in touch.

Of course, the industry you’re in will affect your campaigns, but there are still certain best practices and benchmarks that serve as useful guidelines. Here’s our summary:

Email Types – Do both. Use third party lists and emails offered through publications within your industry to reach and gain new customers as well as to create brand awareness. You’ll want to send emails to your internal database once prospects have opted-in so that you can nurture and retain them.

Frequency – Stay in front of your customers on a regular basis, but don’t bombard them with too much information. You should only be sending out emails if there is new information you want to communicate that offers value to your prospects or customers, such as the promotion of a new product or service. As far as when to send out emails, there is research in this blog entry showing what days of the week are best in regards to open rates and click-through rates, but you have to keep in mind your industry, audience and other details such as time zones. You wouldn’t want to send out an email at 3:00 p.m. PST which is 6:00 p.m. EST if you are trying to reach business professionals.

Results - Results can depend on so many different factors including your industry, audience, etc., but there are a few standards to use for benchmarking purposes. Open rates range from 10% to as high as 45%, and click-through rates average between 2% and 15%. These metrics can help you gauge the success of your subject line, creative and offer, but the most important metric to look at is how well your emails are converting. Since email is a push tactic, your conversion rates won’t be as high as some of your pull tactics, but you should be seeing between a 0.50% and 5% conversion rate.

As is the case with all marketing strategies, the most important thing to do with an email campaign is to make sure you are constantly optimizing through testing and benchmarking against your competition and industry so that you continue to see ROI rise.

Don’t forget that you can use 90octane as a resource for your email marketing questions by simply posting a Comment…