Like all good ideas, this one was stolen. From a non-marketing friend of mine who was releasing a new book and in a bid to get people pre-ordering, he needed them to know what it was about.
So he released the first chapter and asked for feedback from his newsletter database made up of old clients, existing clients and prospective clients.
Clever stuff, right? No wonder it worked. So how could I broaden that out and apply its method to Briight’s clients?
My favourite basic piece of e-marketing segmentation is creating an engaged and unengaged list.
The engaged list is anyone on your database that opened or clicked in say, the last 90 days. The unengaged list is everyone else.
(Pro tip: still do the engaged/unengaged segments even when you have a larger database with other key segments in.)
The main reason I love it so much is because you know you can talk to the engaged list with a different voice – especially in the subject line. They’re your people, your community, your audience. So the first step is to let them know. (For the unengaged I recommend A/B testing against a super clickbaity subject line).
A good rule of copywriting in marketing is addressing the individual. I.e. writing like you’re speaking only to one person. That’s exactly what’s being done here, but knowing they’ve been reading your previous emails gives you an advantage and some insight.
The client we wanted to try this on had a reasonable-sized database of 1000, which we had begun to reawaken after a lengthy time of them not hearing from this company. We knew the list was made up of real smart cookies. Keen pursuers of knowledge in their industry.
And we wanted to flatter them and at the same time let them know they’re an important part of our community. So we asked for their feedback.
Coincidentally, we had a mini-ebook we wanted them to read. It’s funny how the stars align isn’t it?
So we created an A/B subject line experiment. Both of them asked for feedback in different ways with the winner being: “We need your feedback on…”
Note, that our previous emails would give us the open rate benchmark to beat – which stood at 49.51%, which isn’t bad for a list this old and infrequently contacted. So far we had been sending good albeit fairly traditional newsletters.
Here’s the big reveal:
The open rate for the email was 71.54% with a CTR of 7.29%.
These are good results for pretty much any list, but to see an increase in newsletter open rates of 22% is incredible.
The conclusion: with one simple trick you can increase the open rate of your e-shots and newsletters. To get people to read your article/book/service description or anything else, ask them for their feedback on it. And let them know it’s because they’re valued members of your community.