Aiming for more engagement? Track what really matters.
Many associations focus on open rates, but industry experts know that open rates aren’t the best measure of engagement. Email programs and embedded images can make open rates unreliable.
Here are five pieces of advice on how to track what really matters.
1. Don’t pop the champagne based on your open rates.
If you are putting out quality information for your members to read, encourage them to whitelist you by adding your email address to their address book, or by selecting ‘Always Display Images from you@association.com.’
2. The % of readers on a mobile device is only getting larger.
We hear up to 90% read on mobile. This means the misrepresentation of open rates is likely to increase.
3. Clicks matter.
We can debate all we want about the open rate, but clicks are clicks. Either somebody clicked, or they didn’t, regardless of email client and image downloading behavior. So don’t fire your communications director over a decrease in the click to open rate: he’s probably not lost his touch. Be sure to consider the open rate argument and use clicks as intel for future content decisions.
4. Since clicks are key:
– Include a call to action in all messages to properly track campaign performance.
– Lots of traffic is from mobile: make sure your landing pages are mobile-ready.
5. Be intentional with what metrics you’re tracking.
When you can determine who is interested in what topic (clicks), if your email list is healthy (remove hard bounces) and know you’re making progress on your communications goals, you’re on the right track for more effective email marketing.
Need hands-on help? Reach us at CommunicationsOnCall.com.
Credits: Constant Contact, Pinpointe, Mailup and Hubspot. And since many of you use MailChimp, they concur with this information too!
