Newsletter Woes
May 7th, 2007 by Cristina Favreau
I’m embarrassed to admit this challenge I’ve been having, but I’m at a loss as to what I should do. I’m hoping someone will read this and offer a practical solution or make suggestions.
Here’s the situation. My newsletter, The Journey is the Point, is sent to about 300 subscribers (in looking at my stats, I just realized my newsletter had it’s 1 year anniversary in April!). The average overall open rate (since April 2006) is 47.9%, which, to me, in itself is a horrible stat. Each month, the number is declining, but people aren’t opting out… I have a hard time believing spam filters are the only problem. I’m wondering what else it could be and what I can do to improve these numbers.
- I strive to offer quality, content-rich articles with little to no advertising.
- I avoid the obvious spam words (can anyone recommend a site that lists current spam words?).
- I’ve recently switched to a simpler design, with no graphics.
- The very first thing readers see is an “unsubscribe” link.
- I send it out the first Friday of each month (using Constant Contact).
- I don’t bombard my subscribers with additional emails.
What am I missing?
Not everyone has opted in twice, so I think it’s time to clean up my list, but how do I go about doing this? Keep in mind I’m not technically inclined…
I’m also considering changing programs (which is another can of worms), as long as it’s seamless, affordable and has all the features I need to continue growing my coaching practice. What’s your favorite program and why?
One of my goals this year is to double my subscribers, but I’d like to have the majority of them at least open up my newsletter.
HELP!!!
Christina,
The first thing to remember is that your open rate is not the 47.9% you see listed at Constant Contact. That rate does not include opens by those using aol and several other email programs, as well as those using text only. I used to be concerned by a low open rate until I went into Constant Contact and did more research as to what programs are reflected in the open rate.
I also wonder if Friday is perhaps not the best day? Being so close to the weekend, will it be overlooked? And why is the unsubscribe link the first thing they see? Why not put that at the end of the email?
I eventually did away with the opt-in twice because a lot of people just lose that second email or never get around to it.
Email newsletters are tough. Despite what everyone tells you, it is hard to get a good readership and then even harder to get a responsive readership. Case in point: I offered a contest last month where I gave a book review and then offered the book in a draw. All you had to do was send in your email address to be entered. NOT ONE ENTRY! A friend runs a movie website with up to 700 hits a day and he did the same thing. 9 entries.
Fiona
I just wanted to respond to you about your blog post regarding Constant Contact and share with you my experiences. My situation is very similar to yours, I’m almost up to 300 subscribers. My open rate for the last three campaigns has been 29%, 33% and 38% and like you I’m not getting unsubscribes. One thing I was told a couple of years ago (I can’t remember the source!) is that if people read their emails in the preview pane of programs such as Outlook/Outlook Express, it doesn’t actually get credited with an open as they’re not actually opening their email, just previewing it. So it could be that quite a few subscribers read your newsletter in the preview pane. Sometimes I do this too with emails!
I think you would be told that a 47.9% open rate is very good.
I do a get a little disillusioned with my newsletter sometimes and do wonder if I should bother continuing, but usually that doesn’t last for very long and something will happen - I’ll either get a comment or something - that makes me realize I should continue.
You can clean up your list through Constant Contact - they provide an feature for you to do this. If you go into My Settings and click on Confirmed Opt-In Edit, which is in the Other box on the r/h side of the page, they give you instructions to go about cleaning up your list and getting people to confirm their interest in receiving your emails.
One thing I did in a recent newsletter (April) was carried out a survey of my subscribers, using Survey Monkey - http://www.surveymonkey.com I asked my readers what their biggest office headaches were, and what topics they were most interested in. I also asked if they would be willing to provide a testimonial/feedback on my newsletter that I could use on my sign up page. In exchange for doing this, I gave them a free report - Turbo Charge Your Time Management. Time Management is a subject that my readers are particularly interested in. I had more response that I’d anticipated doing a survey like this - much better responses than when I just ask a question and ask them to email me with their answers. You can have a look at what I did here http://www.traceylawton.com/archives/2007/apr07.htm
I got some great feedback for my sign up page too! Take a look here http://www.traceylawton.com/tips.htm
However, I am now planning on moving away from Constant Contact in the summer. I am just about to launch my first product - the Complete Article Tracking Toolkit - and I have set up an account with Aweber so that I could manage my customers and use autoresponders. It makes sense to move my list to here too. That said, I am also looking at setting up an account with 1ShoppingCart as it will manage everything, so by the summer I will have either moved my list over to Aweber, or closed Aweber and Constant Contact and gone with 1ShoppingCart.
Anyway, I hope you find this posting useful, and if I can help further just let me know.
Fiona/Tracey,
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond.
I’m glad to see I’m not alone with low newsletter open rates.
In doing additional research, I read somewhere that Constant Contact is blacklisted by many ISPs (I don’t know if this is still the case).
I’d love to change to 1ShoppingCart, considering how I want to grow my business, but can’t afford it right now. I’m thinking of changing from Constant Contact to Intellicontact.com. It’s less expensive than Constant Contact, and includes autoresponder and survey features. They have a 15-day trial, so I’ll see how that goes.
The unsubscribe link is the first thing readers see because that’s the way Constant Contact is set up.
I realize sending a newsletter on Friday is not the best scenario, so I’ve been toying with the idea of changing to Wednesday.
Thanks again, ladies. Glad you joined the conversation!
It looks like you already have a few responses that cover what I was going to say, but it can’t hurt to reiterate. I wanted to suggest the ideas that some list members could be reading your newsletters as text-only, which means they won’t be tracked. There are also some email programs that don’t display images in emails by default, which is the standard practice by which email open rates are tracked. This would definitely account for some of the other 52.1%, though I couldn’t say how much.
I face many of the same challenges, wondering if people are actually reading, so I’m always happy to get an email from a subscriber, or to meet someone at a networking event and have them tell me they read my ezine.
I never send it out before, during, or after a weekend, or on the 1st or last day of the month.
When I switched service providers, people had to “resubscribe” and I did lose quite a few readers, but not as many as I expected, and at least I knew those people were really interested in continuing to receive it.
I’m so glad to find this post (visiting from Janet Barclay’s tag).
I’m on a double opt-in list and when I moved over I lost 2/3 of my people but slowly I’ve been getting it all back up and it is now higher than before - yay!
I sent out my first HTML newsletter this week and my open rate was 60% after 24 hours and I’ve just looked now and it’s up to 83% 4 days later. It was such a lot of work but I’m hooked on the stats.
Like Tracey, I also ran a survey on survey monkey. People are generally very lazy and you have to make them work for anything.I “bribed” them to take it by offering a prize to 3 people. 80 people took that survey and only 50 sent me the code for the drawing. I emailed the 3 people about a week ago and only two have claimed their prize.
I LOVE feedback so if I find particular value in an issue, I email back and tell them so. Janet and Tracey, I’m on both your lists and you’ve received some of my emails.
Christina, please email me if you want to discuss further. I’d love to hear what you think.
Everyone has offered such wonderful advice so far. I just wanted to reiterate - don’t get hung up on those statistics. Like everyone else has said, it’s impossible to determine exactly how many people are opening your e-zine.
With my statistics I look at unsubscribe rates more than anything else. And, I do a good job of describing my e-zine and targeting my niche - as I’m sure everyone else here does as well - so I have very few unsubscribes. To me, that’s what really counts. If I start having a bunch of unsubscribes, I’ll know that something is amiss… or that people aren’t getting what they need and aren’t reading the e-zine.
I used to get worried about the open rates, but I have a really good response to the things that I advertise in the e-zine, and again, the unsub rates are low - so I know people are reading the e-zine.
The other thing to consider is, instead of relying solely on your e-zine, look to the other ways that you reach out to people as well. For example, I’m a big fan of blogging now because it builds more of a community. I’ve got a way for people to subscribe to my blog, and that rate is increasing. Some people don’t like e-zines - so they have the option now of subscribing to my blog. I also run a Yahoo Group - which is also a community. Again, there are some people on my Yahoo Group that aren’t subscribed to the e-zine.
I’m becoming more and more of a fan of the two-way communication/community options. Not that my e-zine readers don’t contact me - but with the Yahoo Group and the blog, it’s more like a conversation, and I’m finding it really fulfilling and also quite fun
So, don’t let the e-zine stats get you down - remember - you’ve got a great community here as well
Matt, Janet, Marcia and Jenn… Thanks so much for joining in on this subject. You’ve made me realize that I shouldn’t put too much emphasis on stats.
Matt, I had no clue text-only messages aren’t included in the open rate stats. Very good to know. I don’t add images to my newsletter (not since I’ve changed the design), so I don’t know if that makes a difference or not.
Janet, based on your comment (and those of others) I decided to change my newsletter delivery day to the first Wednesday of the month (instead of Friday). I’ll see how that works out. I also seriously want to change providers, so I won’t be surprised to lose some of my subscribers. But hey! I only want people who actually WANT to read my newsletter to be subscribed. I’m wondering, if I increase my delivery to bi-monthly or weekly, will it improve readership?
Marcia, CONGRATS on the incredible success of your first HTML newsletter… The survey idea sounds like a good one too…
Jenn, as always, you have such words of wisdom to share. You’re absolutely correct in saying that if my unsub rates go up, then there’s a problem… I guess my issue is, I want subscribers who actually WANT to read my articles, so if you’re not reading it, just unsub already!!! I agree with you, I too am a fan of 2-way communication options… I love connecting directly with my readers, getting their reaction in almost real-time. How do you keep track of all that? And where do you find the time to participate in each of these forums. I read your blog everyday, and I see how detailed your posts and comments are… You’re such an inspiration to me and I strive to be more like you!!! Thanks for the reminders!
Hi Cristina,
It may not feel like it but your open rates are actually excellent when compared to industry averages. Long-term studies are generally around 20% and rarely better that 30%. Same studies show that early in the week gets best click rates, Friday the worst. My own results are consistent with this. Of course, individual results will vary as they say.
You must be doing something right. I would keep it up and not fret while you’re working on improving. The real key is–how well are you doing turning “opens” into sales?
Steve (”Dr. Steve”) Edelstein
http://www.GoldNuggetCoaching.com