Examine your Email Statistics

Statistics can be a hassle to deal with. But it canbe to your advantage if you know the number of

people that are reading your email andfollowing through with action. They will tell you

if the campaigns you are using for marketingyour small business are actually effective or

simply a waste of your time.

There are email service providers who offerstatistics, some of which are more detailed than

others. You need to understand what thestatistics mean and how they should be

improved.

1.Bounce Rate- the amount of emails that were

returned as undeliverable. This will occur when

an email address is phony or has a spelling mistake.

Should this happen, no emails will get throughto them. It’s best that you remove these email

addresses from your address list. You mayconsider calling these customers to confirm their

email if you aren’t sure you want to deletethem.

2. Open Rate- the number of emails that areopened and used to compare the number of

emails that have been delivered. This cannormally be viewed as a percentage, but there

have been debate about what was considered a“normal” rate. Rarely will you see a percentage

rate of 100 percent.

To better improve your open rate, you shouldpersonalize the “from” field with a name that isfactual as opposed to an email address that is

impersonal. You will also want to write a subjectline that will hold interest and make people

want to read more.

3. The “Click Through” Rate- this is the numberof clicks that a link will receive. If you have links

to your website, Affiliate product, Facebookpage or coupon redemption page, this will be

relevant. A high click through rate will indicate thatyou have written compelling copy and your offer

was valuable to your list.

If your next step is to make a phone call or visit,you will have to measure the responses inperson. You should do this by asking them

how they originally heard about you or what prompted them to contact you.

PURSUING AND

EXPERIMENTING

Pursuing and understanding what your emailmarketing stats mean, is very important to

marketing your small business through email.Experimenting with your next step to find out ifyou’re unhappy with your numbers or feel that

they should improve.

Experimenting simply means that you will splityour list into two and then create two different

versions of the exact same email. The newversion of your email may have a differentsubject, but will hold the same body copy.

Or the subjects are the same but your call toaction will be written differently. You will need

to make sure that the results are meaningful bytesting one variable at a time.

Try running your campaign to find out which version of the email had higher scores. Discoverwhat you did differently to gain higher scores,

and continue that practice in future emails.

Separating your lists to conduct this listshouldn’t worry you, because it’s not needed.

The more popular email service providers offer“Split” or ‘A/B’ testing along with their services.This software will take care of splitting your list

for you.

If a case occurs that you do not see drasticdifferences between your tests, don’t give up on

your email marketing. You can delegate thework to another employee with good writing

skills or may want to consider hiring a professionalcopywriter that has experience specifically with

email.

Email is a very viable means of marketing your

small business and growing a strong prospect

and customer base.