Best Email Marketing Benchmarks for This Year

Introduction-

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If you’re not sick and tired of advice on how to improve your email marketing campaigns with ease, you’re in the minority, and a lucky one, at that.

With so many tips and tricks and the rules of the game changing constantly, how does one even keep track of all the alterations and the fine-tuning of email campaigns?

Judging by this year’s benchmarks, it’s business as usual, no matter the packaging. The same industries that have always performed best are still topping the charts and the same strategies – no matter the variation, are still the most efficient.

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that people’s interests don’t change overnight. Preferable offers remain preferable no matter the strategy… if you manage to get your message read in the first place, that is.

2020 Email Benchmarks

As for the benchmarks mentioned above, let’s say that if your business doesn’t come from the government, nonprofit or education industry, you’re not among the luckiest ones.

Namely, Government open rates have increased from 19.79% last year to 30.5% this year, nonprofit open rates – from 20.39% in 2019 to 25.2% this year and education open rates – from 18.9% in 2019 to 23.4% this year.

Closely following are Consumer packaged goods (14.5% open rates). The worst performing industries happen to be Automotive and Aerospace (12.6%), Food (13.0%) and Beverage and Retail (13.9%).

As for CTRs, again the Government tops the chart, while closely following are Real Estate, Design and Construction, Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting.

Most benchmarks have remained steady in the past two years, while unsubscriptions have risen by 0.08% and bounce rates have fallen by 0.36%.

Improving Your Email Campaigns

1. Subject Lines Are the Key

Subject lines determine whether your email will be read or disregarded. If you fail to grab recipients’ attention, no matter the content or the quality of your message/offer, it will all be in vain.

Subject lines must be both short and concise enough to achieve that goal. Short – because they need to fit in their entirety and concise – because shady offers rarely get people interested.

As for the preferred length, it shouldn’t exceed 60 characters. Minimize punctuation, keep it clear and concise and make certain that your tone is consistent with your brand’s voice.

2. Mind the CTAs

Similarly, calls to action (CTAs) need to stand out and indicate the desired action clearly. Avoid generic messages such as “Click Here” and state the benefits of performing the action instead.

Keep in mind that most people browse through messages rather than reading them. That’s why a CTA should stand out from the rest of the message. Some marketers use bright colors; others use colored text. Whichever works for you is fine; after all, there are no general recommendations.

3. Be Careful with Timing Your Emails

Finally, with emails, it’s all about timing. It’s not a difficult leap to learn that newer messages are more likely to be read than older ones. People don’t have enough time for all of them, anyway, so be mindful of when you send your offers.

Research shows that most of the emails get opened within one hour of being sent – provided that you don’t send them in the middle of the night, of course. Brands targeting 9-to-5 workers have it easier, since most of these emails are being accessed twice a day – once at around 10 a.m. and again at around 1 p.m.. Starting work and a lunch break, perhaps?

4. Email Frequency

Occasional emails are generally welcome. On the other hand, brands that send emails too frequently are bound to be doomed.

Surprisingly, even some of the highly popular brands, such as Book Depository and Academia.edu, tend to forget this simple rule. Think of your own inbox. You are expecting an important email, but when you access your inbox, you see a myriad of irrelevant messages. The first thing you’ll think about will be whether to delete them or flag them as spam.

Your customers are no different. If you keep pestering them, eventually they’ll get sick of it. So, be moderate. Albeit there is no general recommendation, weekly emails seem to be good to go. Most brands send their newsletters either weekly, or bi-weekly or monthly, depending on the offer.

Examples of Best Email Marketing Strategies

• UnboundB2B
  UnboundB2B is a Tech Lead Generation Company that provides full-funnel leads to feed your sales and marketing funnel. The following B2B email by UnboundB2B has tried to showcase how with the help of intent data, unbound has able to gain key insights on the Leads and deliver the right email content to the right person at the right time.

Source: UnboundB2B

•                                                                
  Campaign Monitor – Inspiration
  Campaign Monitor is an email template builder. It has sent the following B2B email to its clients as a reminder about their tool. So you too can send such emails as a reminder for your clients about any new updates on your product/service. With such emails, you can monitor your client’s behavior and design your further emails accordingly. So Campaign Monitor is asking clients to create emails within minutes and also inspire you by giving an example of how their client Rip Curl attained positive results by using their service.

Image Source: mailbakery.com

Check Your Email List

This step is too often overlooked, but it should by no means be skipped. People change their addresses all the time, so it is essential that you clean your email list on a regular basis. Otherwise, you might get confused by the stats, especially in terms of bounce rates.

There are a number of tools that can help you with that – consult Google and find the best one that works for you.

Conclusion

While there are tricks and tricks when it comes to creating successful email marketing campaigns, the simplest things are usually overlooked… and they mustn’t be!

Always keep in mind that communication is the golden standard for keeping your customers engaged and your brand evergreen. The simplest things are often the most efficient ones. Ask your customers for feedback!

That way, things become far easier for you and your customers get happier because they know their favorite brand cares for their input. Oftentimes, things get way too complicated without any reason at all. Be yourself, maintain a consistent voice and listen to that feedback! Success is bound to follow!

Author’s Bio: Yash Chawlani is a Digital Marketing Strategist associated with UnboundB2B, who specializes in SEO, Social Media Optimization (SMO) and Content Marketing. You can connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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