Analyze This!
The deeper you dig into e-mail info, the more effective your overall campaign.
January 2008 By Craig DePole
|
We watch our open rates. We track our clickthroughs. But do we really know who we’re e-mailing?
When we capture the all-important e-mail address, we’ve gained access to that person’s inbox (and, ideally, her approval — or at least an absence of disapproval) in order to communicate with her.
Then we start sending e-mails … and more e-mails — and, for too many of us, we never look back. Yes, we track open rates, clickthrough rates, donations, number of new e-mail addresses and on and on. We do a great job of accumulating e-mail addresses and analyzing campaigns.
But we’re leaving out an important part of the analysis if we don’t look at the behavior behind the e-mail address.
Who is the person opening and clicking? Does she click through every e-mail or just the ones that ask her to take action? Is she opening the e-mail and then abandoning it? Does she rally her friends around her cause? Does she download the video? Does she also participate offline?
In the direct-marketing world, we always have had only one goal in mind: Secure a donation. And so our analysis has taken us to ever-expanding realms to understand the triggers for a donor to make a gift. We not only analyze the campaign — from the creative and the technique to the timing and seasonality — but we also analyze the donor’s behavior and the actions each donor takes leading up to her most recent gifts. It’s time we apply those insights to our e-mail lists.
Here are three key metrics and reports to better understand your e-mail subscribers.
1. Overall activity of the file. This isn’t about how many people opened a particular campaign, but how many have opened anything in 12 months or more.
In DM we have proven time and again that recency, frequency and amount are the holy grail of segmentation and the likely triggers for another gift. As a result of these factors and their predictive impact on whether a donor will respond again, we “lapse” donors and decide when we are no longer going to communicate with them in the same way we do with our “active” donors.
Given the very low cost to send an e-mail, the prevailing mindset has been to keep sending to every e-mail address on the list regardless of activity. However, if a large portion of the subscriber base has not opened or clicked through an e-mail in 12 months or more, it’s time to rethink the contact strategy for this group. These people should be treated like potential prospects or removed from the list.
When we capture the all-important e-mail address, we’ve gained access to that person’s inbox (and, ideally, her approval — or at least an absence of disapproval) in order to communicate with her.
Then we start sending e-mails … and more e-mails — and, for too many of us, we never look back. Yes, we track open rates, clickthrough rates, donations, number of new e-mail addresses and on and on. We do a great job of accumulating e-mail addresses and analyzing campaigns.
But we’re leaving out an important part of the analysis if we don’t look at the behavior behind the e-mail address.
Who is the person opening and clicking? Does she click through every e-mail or just the ones that ask her to take action? Is she opening the e-mail and then abandoning it? Does she rally her friends around her cause? Does she download the video? Does she also participate offline?
In the direct-marketing world, we always have had only one goal in mind: Secure a donation. And so our analysis has taken us to ever-expanding realms to understand the triggers for a donor to make a gift. We not only analyze the campaign — from the creative and the technique to the timing and seasonality — but we also analyze the donor’s behavior and the actions each donor takes leading up to her most recent gifts. It’s time we apply those insights to our e-mail lists.
Here are three key metrics and reports to better understand your e-mail subscribers.
1. Overall activity of the file. This isn’t about how many people opened a particular campaign, but how many have opened anything in 12 months or more.
In DM we have proven time and again that recency, frequency and amount are the holy grail of segmentation and the likely triggers for another gift. As a result of these factors and their predictive impact on whether a donor will respond again, we “lapse” donors and decide when we are no longer going to communicate with them in the same way we do with our “active” donors.
Given the very low cost to send an e-mail, the prevailing mindset has been to keep sending to every e-mail address on the list regardless of activity. However, if a large portion of the subscriber base has not opened or clicked through an e-mail in 12 months or more, it’s time to rethink the contact strategy for this group. These people should be treated like potential prospects or removed from the list.
Companies Mentioned:
 |
|
Hitting the Email Inbox
Hitting the Email Inbox
