In fact, email marketing delivers a whopping $36 return for every $1 spent, according to Litmus. And with third-party cookies going by the wayside in 2022, it’s more important than ever to get your email house in order. One of the best ways to do this? Creating a subscriber experience that sets you up for success by winning over hearts (brand love), minds (you are the expert!), and wallets (they have to spend with you!).
Here are three ways to get to know your subscribers:
Research
One-on-one or group
A lot of marketers forget that their email list is just like a mini focus group. Understanding your shoppers—loyal, lost, and potential—is key to unlocking your ideal customer and learning what you need to do to attract more like them in the future. There are several ways to get feedback, including:
- Surveys (net promoter score/NPS or multi-question)
- In-depth 1:1 interviews (phone or video)
- Virtual focus groups
- Video diaries
- In-email sentiment trackers (thumbs-up, thumbs-down, star ratings)
Regardless of the method you choose, soliciting direct feedback, whether anonymously or in- person, is a good way to also earn some brand love. Brands that check in with and listen to subscribers often create more loyal customers in the long term.
Typical email metrics
Opens, clicks, unsubscribes
If emails could talk, you could learn a lot about your subscribers. Oh, wait. They do. Open rates, clickthrough rates, and other standard email metrics all give you signals. They let you know when subscribers are interested, not interested, and when they're done.
You can optimize content by A/B testing, which is a tactic used by 90% of marketers, according to Litmus. You can also personalize emails to deepen engagement. Birthday emails are said to drive 3.42 times the revenue of a standard promotional email. Understanding what makes people open, click, unsubscribe, and buy can help you learn exactly what type of content works—and what doesn’t.
Not-so-typical email metrics
Email clients, read rate, dark mode usage
How do you optimize the more technical nuances of templates? Or apply what you learn in your email program to other channels? With analytics that go beyond opens and clicks. When you know which email clients your subscribers use, you can optimize the experience. For example, what if the majority of your subscribers are on mobile and using dark mode? You’ll want to incorporate that into your design strategy, quality assurance (QA), and testing process. Or let’s say you know an email has a high forward or print rate. You might have a possible viral piece of content on your hands.
Don’t miss out on insights like these—see what subscribers told us when we analyzed more than 10 billion (yes, a billion!)—opens. Get subscriber benchmarks for the not-so-typical metrics and deliver a not-so-typical subscriber experience in return.
—Megan Moller, Director of Content Marketing, Litmus