Bigger is NOT better for your email marketing list.
The size of your email marketing list used to be the measure…the Key Performance Indicator (KPI)…that the strength of your marketing was measured by, but not anymore. While Inbox filters are not new, Google Gmail has now launched its new sorting system. How do messages get sorted, you ask? Based on the email receiver’s actions.
As Debra Ellis explains in “Gmail’s New Inbos Makes Email Marketing Harder”, Google is making even harder for businesses to market using email, even when someone subscribes legitimately to your newsletter.[EasyDNNnewsToken:Left Justify Embed 300 x 250]What matters most is not how many people you’ve got on your email list but whether they are taking any action. You heard right: no longer is the lead email marketing KPI the number of subscribers on your list. Now you want to be able to show that a high percentage of your recipients are engaging with that email:
- the subscriber opened the email
- the subscriber clicked through to your website or Facebook page
- the subscriber shared the email with another person or on a social network
So the next time an advertising salesperson tries to sell you on the number of impressions you’ll get, challenge them to share activity metrics instead. Do the math to figure out the percentage of folks interacting with your marketing efforts to see who is really taking the bait and who’s fluffing the numbers.
