The Science of Email Marketing

In my previous two blog posts in this series, I wrote about how to build an email list and retain those email subscribers; both were based on an eBook from Lyris called the Bionic List Building Guide.  This third and final blog post in the email marketing series is based on the outstanding HubSpot webinar I attended recently called The Science of Email Marketing, which was given by Dan Zarrella.

If you haven’t heard of Dan, check out his website.  He’s a numbers guy and likes to conduct research, especially around social media, and report back on his findings, which usually includes a lot of myth-busting.  For example, one big myth posits that B2B and B2C are different.  In a survey he conducted, he asked “Do you use separate work and personal inboxes?”  The answer might surprise you: 88 percent said no.  The takeaway: Businesses are consumers.

Anyway, Dan collected data for this report on email marketing from 9.5 billion emails, focus groups and a survey.  Here’s what I learned:

Timing really matters

Click-through rates double on weekends, while unsubscribe rates are highest on Tuesdays (and lowest on Thursdays).  Emails that are sent between 5 and 7am have the highest click-through rates, while those sent after 10pm have the highest unsubscribe rates.   The takeaway: Send emails early in the day and on weekends.

4 content tricks worth using

1. More than 80 percent of people read email on their smartphones, so make sure your emails are optimized for mobile.

2. The more links in your emails, the more clicks and fewer unsubscribes.

2. Include reference information, such as how-tos, cheat sheets, data, etc., so people will save your emails.

4. People love exclusivity.  Continually remind them that the information they receive from you via email is special.

The more frequent, the better

This was a big surprise: The more emails you send, the lower your unsubscribe rates.  I know, go figure!

Email is not dead

More than 70 percent of those surveyed said they read most or all of their email.  However, most of them never forward emails, so, in your emails, ask people to follow you on Facebook or Twitter instead of asking them to share your emails.

Image by Flickr user Horia Varlan (Creative Commons)

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 at 9:00 am and is filed under Email Marketing, Marketing, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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