EMAIL BENCHMARK

REPORT 2013

Kenneth has enjoyed a marketing

career both agency and client side.

With over seven years experience

writing B2B and B2C copy, Kenneth

has created content for a wide

variety of industries.

Enthusiastic about all things copy, he

has a proven track record of creating

content capable of generating leads,

sales and revenue.

In the role of Head of Content at

Really B2B (a Sunday Times Top 100

firm and ranked agency in B2B

Marketing’s Agency League), Kenneth

is responsible for creating a strong

brand personality and crafting

content for our B2B clients which

generates action and solid ROI.

Kenneth is passionate about writing

that gets results.

THE AUTHOR Kenneth Connolly

It’s now time to benchmark your B2B lead generation

email activity

In this Email Benchmark Report we’ll discuss email metrics such as Open

Rates, Clickthrough Rates and Unsubscribe Rates. But, more importantly, we’ll

look at the numerical data of each particular industry to enable you to

benchmark your own email activity and identify potential areas for

improvement.

Why is it so important to address the industry? Well, to put it simply, what

works for some, appears not to work so well for others.

We all know that email marketing works best as part of an integrated

campaign, but in some industries, is this marketing channel more or less

powerful?

At Really B2B, we regularly find that as a lead generation tool, email is an

excellent choice of communication channel - hence its inclusion in 98% of all

our lead generation campaigns for our clients.

However, let’s look at some data...

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Open rates are the first hurdle in any email marketing campaign. You’ve done

the difficult part of researching the best sending days and times; you’ve used a

‘from’ name which you know your reader will recognise and you’ve written an

eye-catching and interesting subject line. But, what if you’ve got all these

elements right and your open rates are still low? Is it simply your industry?

Using the table above (from 2012 Silverpop Email Metrics Study) you can see

that the average open rate can differ hugely from one industry to the next. For

example, the Computer Software industry has an average open rate of 24.7%

while Education only has an average open rate of 15%. So does this mean that

email as a communication channel is pointless in certain industries? Certainly

not.

Look closer and you’ll see that the top quarter figures in industries such as

Financial Services and Media & Publishing reached a whopping 48% while their

average was only in the low twenties.

EMAIL OPEN RATES

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Once your email has been opened, how many people read your copy and

clicked on your well written Call To Action (CTA)?

As with the open rates, the average clickthrough rates are rather widespread –

ranging from a low of 2.3% to a high of 8.9%. The Travel & Leisure industry is

suffering particularly badly with low numbers across the board.

With open rates, the only things which can effectively change the result are the

send day/time, the ‘from’ address and the subject line. But, with clickthrough

rates, your copy, content and CTA are all under scrutiny.

So, granted the table above would suggest that email marketing in particular

industries is not worth the time, effort and money. However, this data is also

dependant on the quality and relevance of the email content. By using persona

documents (to create a ‘picture’ of your prospects), integrated Social Media

and real-time data you can create content that is personalised, targeted and

relevant to your particular reader. By providing your prospect with the content

they want, when they want it, you will surely see an increase in clickthrough

rates.

EMAIL CLICKTHROUGH RATES

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It is also important to consider whether a clickthrough is your main CTA. If

your business is looking to generate leads or appointments for your sales team,

then the call to action may simply be ‘reply’. The purpose of this type of

communication is to encourage your prospects to engage with you, therefore

providing you with insight and an appointment to convert. In this instance, the

clickthrough rate would not be a key performance indicator.

EMAIL CLICKTHROUGH RATES

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Unsubscribe rates are generally low, however Travel & Leisure has again

suffered with an average unsubscribe of 1.64% and a bottom quarter of 6.77%.

In the last section of this report, I discussed the need for prospect insight in

order to create personalised, targeted and relevant copy/content. These

unsubscribe rates are basically a reflection of people not engaging with the

emails they are receiving and therefore unsubscribing from the mailing list.

That is not to say that unsubscribe rates can be eradicated entirely, but they

can certainly be reduced by sending the right content to the right people at the

right time. For example, if you know that your prospect is tied into a 12 month

contract with one of your competitors, you can use email in a more timely

manner and strike when you know they are entering the buying cycle.

Obviously you won’t ignore them until that point, but there are other

marketing strategies (content and inbound marketing) which you can use in the

meantime to help nurture them until they are ‘sales ready’.

EMAIL UNSUBSCRIBE RATES

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So, is email a waste of time in certain industries? The

answer is no.

As mentioned in our B2B Marketing Survival Guide for 2013, email as a

communication channel has a part to play in every integrated marketing

campaign regardless of industry. However, the only way to see good results

from emails is to use them correctly.

Know your prospects better than they know themselves. What they like, what

they dislike, what their pain points are and what they are looking for. With this

information utilised in the correct way, you should see an increase in both open

and clickthrough rates and a reduction in unsubscribe rates. But most

importantly, you’ll be delivering leads, appointments and sales for your

organisation.

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LOOKING FOR

BUSINESS GROWTH?

At Really B2B, our campaign research has show that we

regularly exceed average industry open rates by almost

4%. How do we do it...?

Get in touch and we’ll show you how.

We’d love to discuss your objectives for 2013 and how

our B2B lead generation services can help support

your business growth.

If you’re interested in improving your lead generation

processes, request a meeting.

© Really B2B, 1000 Lakeside, Western Road, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hants, PO6 3EN

www.reallyb2b.com