Top E-Mail Marketers Widen Lead in CTRs, Opens

In e-mail marketing, there's a widening gap between top and bottom performers. A 2014 E-mail Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study from Silverpop found that the top-performing quartile of e-mail marketers scored a 9.5% click-through rate (CTR), six times higher than the overall median click-through rate of 1.5%, per a summary report in Marketing Land. Meanwhile, bottom-quartile performers mustered CTRs of just 0.2%. Analyzing marketing e-mails sent by 3,000 brands from 40 different countries during 2013, Silverpop calculated mean and median benchmarks for various e-mail metrics, including click-through rates, open rates and bounce rates. Evaluating the CTRs of fourteen different industries, the study found real estate, construction, health care, consumer services and nonprofits generated the highest median CTRs. According to the study, transactional e-mails – messages triggered automatically by events such as purchases, subscriptions and account activity – earned a median CTR of 4.2%, compared to a median CTR of 1.5% for non-transactional emails. The study also reported that unique open rates for the top-performing quartile of e-mail marketers stood at 39.4%, more than double the median for all marketers and way above the bottom-quartile performance of 6.5%. Health care, nonprofits and education represented industries earning the highest median unique open rates. For a summary of Silverpop's study in terms of CTRs and open rates by industry, go to http://marketingland.com/study-top-performing-email-marketers-see-60-higher-click-rates-87025

Education Sector Tops 2011 Online Giving Growth

Education fundraisers provide a lesson on the value of year-round online effort in Blackbaud Inc.'s latest report on 2011 online giving. The report showed overall online giving up 13% on a year-over-year basis (after removing international giving's Haiti earthquake skew), but education organizations led the pack with a 40% rise from 2009. Most fundraisers still count on a seasonal spike, with October-December online giving accounting for almost 35% of 2011 donations, but Steve MacLaughlin, Blackbaud director of Internet solutions, noted, "It is possible to build an online giving program that avoids the make-or-break, end-of-year fundraising crunch. This is evidenced by the education and healthcare sectors that have benefited from concerted online fundraising efforts during other parts of the year." For details, see
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Online-Giving-Nonprofits-Grew-bw-2040041820.html

Forecast: Higher-Ed Marketing Soars Into the 'Cloud'

2012 will see cloud computing expanding its role in higher education markets, predicts Enrollment Rx President Lawrence Levy. While his prognostications may be self-serving, since Enrollment Rx is an innovator of cloud-based CRM for higher-education clients, including California State University, his forecasts are based on some undeniable technical trends. Mobile and social media innovations are among Levy's top drivers for cloud adoption at academic institutions. The current generation of students already relies on their smart devices and social networks like Facebook to communicate, share and get information, Levy points out. With the cloud delivery model, institutions gain immediate access to innovations that vendors develop, making it a natural fit for extending main systems like CRM to mobile devices and social networks in a low-cost, low-resource way, Levy asserts. For more details of his technical forecasts for the education market, see
http://markets.financialcontent.com/prnews/news/read?GUID=20355342

Online College Uses Postcards to Rocket Enrollment

Here's an impressive example of direct mail outperforming online for education marketing: Lakewood College, a two-year nonprofit online school, vastly increased its enrollment levels of military-affiliated students with a postcard marketing program this summer. Starting with a 10,000-piece drop in June and following up with 30,000 pieces in July, Lakewood enrolled 300 students, according to Tonya Higgins, president of the 525-student, Lakewood, Ohio-based institution. That compares to just 45 students recruited from the military last year when the school relied on online ads, search and PR. For details on the postcard campaign, see http://chiefmarketer.com/direct/print/school-postcard-effort-makes-enrollments-surge-1026-lar2/?YM_MID=1268168&YM_RID=jan%2540lexinet.net