Are you winning the race to customers’ inboxes?

Chart of the Day: A third of marketers report open rates of 10% or less

Email marketing is an effective way for you to build brand awareness, communicate with your customers, and generate revenue. However, when your email address list sits in the tens, or even hundreds, of thousands, it can be easy to settle for low open rates.

After all, let’s say 16,000 people open your latest sales offer email. That almost enough to fill an NBA arena. Sure, it’s the New Orleans Pelican’s Smoothie King Centre, the smallest one in the league, but doesn’t it sound better this way? Anyway, on an industry level, 8% is below expectations. Why not tweak your message or layout and aim a little higher?

Demand Metric and Return Path asked marketers to share their average open rate for bulk email sends. Let’s take a look how they answered, how you should rank your own email marketing efforts against it, and what factors may be behind the figures.

The stragglers: 0-10%

Roughly a third of respondents reported average open rates of 10% or lower. The research went on to find that ‘Competition for attention in the inbox’ was the biggest challenge to email marketing efforts, which is likely the hurdle these respondents are falling at. They’ll need to assess their overall marketing messages (sales, product promotions etc.), their email layout, and the tone of voice they’re using in their messages.

The middle of the pack: 11-15%

When you’re hitting double figures, you aren’t doing too bad. Your customers are reacting to your emails, but you may be restricted by your current level of staffing or internal resources. It’s important to balance creating a recognizable branded email without it becoming stale and something your customers skim past when checking their inboxes.

The contenders: 16-25%

16% is the ceiling to break through when it comes to email success. The only thing holding you back now is the amount of visibility and analysis you have on your campaign performance. Are you sending your emails at the best local time for each of your markets? Can you see which email links are being clicked and which you can afford to remove? Never rest on your laurels and use insight to refine your approach.

The front-runners: 26% and above

That’s more like it! If you’re hitting 26%, you’re really making an impact with your customers. Still, you need to make sure your email service provider isn’t you holding back from performing even better than you are. There’s still room for innovation in the world of email marketing!

• Source: Demand Metric in partnership with Return Path
• Sample: 290 completed surveys replies
• Recommended resource: Email marketing strategy guide