Internet Marketing Blog

We are often asked what the ideal open rate should be for a particular client email campaign. To answer this it is important to consider several factors about the people that you are talking to.

Do you know your audience and do they know you?

If you are in regular contact with the people in your database and this list is compiled of people who have opted-in to receive your correspondence or have made a purchase from you, you can expect a higher open rate than if you are ‘cold-call’ emailing them.

How often do you speak to them and do they want to hear from you?

If these lucky people receive interesting and compelling emails from you on a monthly basis (and you know they want to), then you can expect to have a good open rate and bit of interaction with your target audience.

If this is the first time that you have spoken to this audience, either because the list has never been used because it has sat around for a few years (and the addresses have possibly expired) or because they are part of a bought list, then you cannot expect to have a high open rate. Equally, if you have been spamming them – sending them loads of emails every week – then they are less likely to want to open your emails.

Email Marketing works as three different marketing tools. Firstly, it helps you to cleanse your database for people that actually want to hear from you, getting rid of those who don’t, and ultimately giving you a higher open rate.

Email Marketing also acts as a marketing ‘brand’ exposure tool, getting your brand ‘out there’ to the masses. If this is the first time that you have emailed a particular group of people you cannot expect a huge reaction from them straight away. You have to build a relationship and trust associated with your brand, which takes time.

For every email that you send out asking someone to buy something there will be those who make a purchase straight away and those who don’t need your service right now, but will remember who you are and make a purchase at a later date. There are even those who one day are surfing the web and stumble across you and feel a certain tie to your brand because of the email that you once sent to them and there are those who will begin to see your brand name synonymous with what you do.

The results that you get from your email should be measured by the reaction that you were hoping for (sales, enquiries etc) and the remit of your email. Remember that if you are asking people to do something, such as fill in a form, you should make this process as simple as possible; the simpler the process, the more likely you are of a result.

B2B emails have a higher open rate than B2C emails and the more that you send, the more of a reaction you will get. If we have to talk figures, and I know that is what you want, then I would say that on a B2B email anything between 10% - 20% is a sound open rate and on a consumer email you can expect to see a much lower percentage of around 5 – 10%, but again, this is down to the receptiveness of your audience in the first place.

If you want to talk to us about your email marketing, then call us on 0845 838 7435 or email us here.