Thursday, June 19, 2014

Q1 E-mail: Insurance Tops CTR; Mobile Design Lack

Insurance e-mail marketing led other industries in terms of response in the first quarter of 2014, according to Yesmail's "Q1 Benchmarks Overview." Insurance e-mails scored the highest average open rate (31.4%), unique click rate (7.6%) and click-to-open rate (CTR) of 24.1%. Per the Yesmail study of more than 5 billion e-mails deployed in the first quarter, marketing/advertising company e-mails had the dubious distinction of the lowest average open rate (9.8%) as well as the lowest unique click rate (0.7%). However, the lowest CTRs were earned by the e-mail creative of Financial Services (3.7%) and Technology (5.3%), despite high 28% and 20% open rates, respectively. Overall, open rates rose 6% in the first quarter compared with the fourth quarter of 2013, and unique click rates were up 8%, but those increases may have been due to 20% lower e-mail volume after the year-end holiday quarter. For e-mail marketers seeking to leverage mobile, there is some key news: E-mails using mobile-friendly responsive design had a 21% higher CTR in the first quarter when compared with non-responsive e-mails. Yet 75% of marketers neglected mobile design, with 31% not sending responsive e-mails at all, and 44% sending them less than half of the time. See more on the Yesmail e-mail benchmarks in the MarketingProfs report at http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2014/25246/marketing-email-benchmarks-open-rates-by-industry-device-trends

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

How to Use Preheader Text to Boost E-mail Opens

With a crowded e-mail inbox and a few seconds of e-mail attention span, snaring opens is a struggle -- even with a good subject line. What if you could reinforce the opening power of your subject line? A recent Target Marketing magazine article explains how to do that with preheader text. Preheader text is the grayed-out text that shows up after the subject line when checking e-mail in your Gmail inbox or on your mobile device. If you don't put in your own preheader text, you send a default message like "If you're having trouble viewing this e-mail…" -- which wastes space that could pack real marketing punch. The Target Marketing piece suggests how to use preheader text as a second chance to capture reader attention. You can use it to expand on the subject line, add call-to-action language or add an incentive offer, for example. And you can personalize the preheader for a more subtle friendliness than the personalized subject line, which offends some. One thing the preheader should not do is merely repeat or recast the subject line; that's a reader-annoying waste of marketing real estate. Plus, you're writing for the e-mail inbox, so keep the preheader short but impactful at 75 characters or less. Finally, since the preheader should be audience-targeted marketing copy, you should do A/B testing of variations. For more tips, check out the article at http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/8-uses-preheader-text-improve-email-open-rates/1