Psychotactics

Why Clients Buy—And Why They Don't

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Philosophy
    • About Psychotactics
    • Contact Sean
  • Free Articles
    • Psychological Strategies
    • Starting Up Strategies
    • Marketing Strategies
    • Article Writing Strategies
    • Copywriting Strategies
    • Internet Marketing Strategies
  • Podcast
  • Blog
  • Clients
    • Client Results
  • Products
    • Start Here First
    • Home Study
      • Article Writing
      • Uniqueness Strategy
      • Info Products
      • Copywriting
    • Books
      • Brain Audit
      • Under $50
      • Above $200
    • Membership
  • Workshops
    • Online Courses
    • Worldwide Workshops and Meet-Ups
  • Services
    • Speaker
    • Consulting
  • Fun Stuff
    • Resources
    • Cartoons
    • Recipes

Internet Marketing: Are open-rates a good indicator of your newsletter’s success?

Author: Sean D'Souza

If you're sending out a newsletter, how do you benchmark your success?
Is it by open-rates? Or something else?

The answer, sadly, doesn't lie in open-rates

Open-rates are based on the factor of whether or not your article was um, opened. I say um, because open-rate is a crazy issue. When a client um, opens your article, it doesn't mean they've read your article.

It simply means they've clicked on it, and opened it. So that's a pretty crappy way to determine if they're reading your article or not. But if your benchmark isn't open-rates, then how do you benchmark?

Let me start with our story.

When we first started writing articles at Psychotactics.com, I'd send out an article maybe about ten times a year. And then, on a whim, I started writing articles twenty-ish times a year (that's two a month).
And then I finally settled on about once a week. So what caused us to go from once a month to once a week?

We benchmarked the actions taken by customers, and we changed the frequency of the newsletter as a result.

So what do I mean by this ‘benchmarking?'

You benchmark on the action you want performed
An article isn't a blah-blah. It's specifically meant to educate and then take some action.

With some articles that action may be:

1) To read another article.
2) To subscribe to the newsletter.
3) To buy a product, service or training session.
4) To congregate and run stark naked through the city street.

Ok, so I'm exaggerating, but you get the point

The point of the article is to measure the response to the action. Which of course means that the action has to be pre-determined. And consequently, your frequency is going to depend on the response to the action.

So for instance, the purpose of the Psychotactics letter is to educate, and simultaneously to get customers to purchase a product/service. Now when we ran the article once a month, we got a specific number of sales. When we ran the article twice a month, we got almost twice the number of sales. When we ran it four times a month, we got at least thrice the number of sales, and often more, but never less.

So our frequency was determined by products sold.

But wouldn't it make sense to then increase the frequency even higher to increase products sold?

Well, not really. The products are selling because of consumption of the content. The products are only sold because of the credibility of the content.
But if the content gets too much, then there's a factor of overload.
At which point consumption goes down. And sales go down.
And un-subscribes go uppity-up.

Not something you wanted to do, eh?

So here's your benchmark: Get the client to do something. Whatever that something may be.
Then measure how many clients did that something.
Then make sure you increase frequency slowly, and keep measuring.
Also make sure you don't get greedy. If you're sending out more than one newsletter a week, you're overdoing it.

Which brings us full circle to open-rates.

Open-rates are nice. But they are mostly feel-good when it comes to measuring an action.
Because it's the actions that benchmark your frequency. But hey, you already know that don't you?

So make sure your newsletter has a benchmark from now on.
And that will tell you what you really need to know, eh?

Next Internet marketing Article: An Aspirin Or An Autoresponder

Subscribe : Here are the links to get all the Psychotactics articles, goodies and podcasts automatically.
iTunes   |  Android   |  E-mail  | RSS | Spotify |

Next Step: Read actionable articles on internet marketing.

The Headline Report

The Headline Report has been downloaded over 155,000 times. In ten minutes (or less) you’ll learn how to systematically build a headline that works. Click on the button below to get a detailed report on "Why headlines fail (And how to create headlines that work)".

Get the Headline Report

Filed Under: Internet marketing Tagged With: Internet marketing, internet strategy, Website Marketing, website strategies small business

Comments

  1. Judith Tramayne says

    February 17, 2010 at 11:25 am

    Thank you! I’ll never look at open rates in the same way.

    BTW, I really enjoy receiving your newsletters and have shared this article link on Facebook.

    Judith

    Reply
  2. Roberto Justus says

    March 12, 2010 at 1:00 pm

    Great information! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks! Roberto Justus

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

What Bugs Me small business marketing bugs

Does anything on this website bug you? Nothing is too small or too big. If there's something we can fix, we'd love to know. The bug of the month even gets a hand-painted cartoon + postcard. Click here to report a bug.

The Headline Report why headlines fail report

The Headline Report has been downloaded over 155,000 times. In ten minutes (or less) you’ll learn how to systematically build a headline that works. Sign up for the Psychotactics newsletter and get access to a detailed report on "Why Headlines Fail (And how to create headlines that work)" Click here to subscribe and get it right away

PSYCHOTACTICS

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

sean@psychotactics.com | Skype | Privacy

Copyright © 1999 - 2023 PsychoTactics Limited. Website Development StressLessWeb

  • Home
  • About Us
    ▼
    • Philosophy
    • About Psychotactics
    • Contact Sean
  • Free Articles
    ▼
    • Psychological Strategies
    • Starting Up Strategies
    • Marketing Strategies
    • Article Writing Strategies
    • Copywriting Strategies
    • Internet Marketing Strategies
  • Podcast
  • Blog
  • Clients
    ▼
    • Client Results
  • Products
    ▼
    • Start Here First
    • Home Study
      ▼
      • Article Writing
      • Uniqueness Strategy
      • Info Products
      • Copywriting
    • Books
      ▼
      • Brain Audit
      • Under $50
      • Above $200
    • Membership
  • Workshops
    ▼
    • Online Courses
    • Worldwide Workshops and Meet-Ups
  • Services
    ▼
    • Speaker
    • Consulting
  • Fun Stuff
    ▼
    • Resources
    • Cartoons
    • Recipes