Hey Everybody:
I recently took a look at the open rates for the emails in my autoresponder series and was...vaguely dissatisfied. Dissatisfied because, of course, I wanted the rates to be higher, but vaguely because I realized I had no idea what was "good" or "average".
So I thought I'd ask all of you what kind of figures you're seeing, as well as sharing what I've got. Here are the emails in my funnel, in order, along with subject lines and the number of days between emails for a little additional context. Would love to see something similar from anyone else who doesn't mind sharing. [Note that "Radio Nowhere" is the name of my band]
1) Hi, It's Radio Nowhere 43% opened
2) John Lennon, Van Morrison, Carlos Santana - and Radio Nowhere? What? 22.1% opened / sent 3 days later
3) How To Interview Stoned Rock Stars - and - Tips for Proper Studio Headwear 12% opened / sent 3 days later
4) Shhhh - I'm Hiding from Michael Jackson's Army of Zombie Lawyers 18% opened / sent 3 days later
5) My Mom Is Going To Be So Mad That I Told You About This... 7.9% opened / sent 3 days later
6) Time Sensitive - Get The Limited Edition Radio Nowhere CD + Bonus Tracks 8.4% opened / sent 1 day later
7) Final Notice - Get The Limited Edition Radio Nowhere CD + Bonus Tracks 3.6% opened / sent 1 day later
#5 tells fans about my 3 day LTO CD sale, #6 & 7 are obviously reminders.
Then I have another email that goes out 14 days after the end of the LTO, with this subject & open rate:
8) Dude, Where's My Car 40% open rate
How do these numbers look to you guys?
"Radio Nowhere? What the hell is that? We wanted him to be a lawyer" — My Mom
Okay, so she didn't like it. But you just might! Loud guitars, award-winning songwriting, and visits from the devil.
Check it out and pick up a free EP here..
Sorry to say, they don't look great. Even your welcome message is getting a poor open rate which is odd. See my screen shot for mine. The process we are using is basically the same, which leaves me really baffled. I've seen quite a few clients open rates and yours are FAR lower than the norm. The only things I can think of here are...
1. Your targeting is just all wrong and who you/we think will respond to your music is not responding. If that is the case then you need to do some market research, perhaps survey your fans.
2. Your traffic sources are not as good as they appear and you are getting low quality, even fake leads (if you are going for some of those "cheap traffic" services that could be an issue).
3. Something is broken, or turning people off in your funnel.
4. You have such a small sample, spread out over time and different sources, that you don't have any consistent data yet.
Your music is good Mike, that's not the problem. But for some reason you have been having a hard time connecting these dots. It happens with any business. And we've seen form the case study we did on you that it can be turned around. But it may just need a higher degree of maintenance, and perhaps a different approach.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Thanks, John. Good to have some kind of benchmark for open rates.
Almost 100% of my signups have come from one of two sources:
1) Facebook Ads pitching new artist like Elvis Costello
2) Fans of EC, Counting Crows, or Tom Petty following me back on Twitter
So I don't think bad leads are the problem.
I'm pretty sure nothing's broken, since I've signed up for my own list several times and monitored every step of the process.
So I guess it's down to bad targeting and/or low sample size. I'll do some more work on those and see what happens.
"Radio Nowhere? What the hell is that? We wanted him to be a lawyer" — My Mom
Okay, so she didn't like it. But you just might! Loud guitars, award-winning songwriting, and visits from the devil.
Check it out and pick up a free EP here..
Cool. I can't quite explain it but there is some kind of a phenomenon which I feel I have observed with multiple online sites / businesses I have run over the years. When I just get a trickle of traffic it seems to convert terribly. If I was to get 200 clicks over 30 days it seems like that traffic never converts. If I was to get 200 clicks in a day, it seems that it does. I believe the reason is that when it's just a trickle it means that the traffic is either coming from some weird, long tail search query and isn't that targeted, or it's coming from under bid PPC which tends to be lower quality. That is just a guess, but I have seen that happen over and over again.
You might also just need to look at your emails themselves. They could be lacking that spark that keeps people engaged. Or at least your target demo engaged.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
#1
|
{!firstname_fix} - I've Got Your Do...Edit | Send a test | Delete | Copy |
|
Send immediately
|
0spam score | 79.9%opened |
#2
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{!firstname_fix} - Another free so...Edit | Send a test | Delete | Copy |
Every Day 3PM-6PM
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Send 1 days after
the previous message |
0spam score | 50.7%opened |
#3
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{!firstname_fix} - This Involves Yo...Edit | Send a test | Delete | Copy |
Every Day 3PM-6PM
|
Send 1 days after
the previous message |
0spam score | 42.2%opened |
#4
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We Thought You Might Like This {!fi...Edit | Send a test | Delete | Copy |
F-Su 12 Noon-6PM,...
|
Send 2 days after
the previous message |
0spam score | 32.4%opened |
#5
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An Unique Story From The Road...Edit | Send a test | Delete | Copy |
M,W-Su 12 Noon-6P...
|
Send 2 days after
the previous message |
0spam score | 31.8%opened |
#6
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Get Our Acoustic EP for FREE!Edit | Send a test | Delete | Copy |
Sa-Su 9AM-9PM, M-...
|
Send 1 days after
the previous message |
0spam score | 33.1%opened |
#7
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{!firstname_fix} - You'll LOVE thi...Edit | Send a test | Delete | Copy |
Sa-Su 12 Noon-6PM...
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Send 2 days after
the previous message |
0spam score | 29.5%opened |
#8
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{!firstname_fix} How are you doing?Edit | Send a test | Delete | Copy |
Every Day 3PM-6PM
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Send 7 days after
the previous message |
0spam score | 41.9%opened |
That looks pretty decent. It's a little soft in emails 4 - 7 but it picks up again in email 8. Open rates should be pretty string within the first few emails but if you maintain a long term open rate over about 35% that is pretty decent. In most other markets email open rates tend to drop below 15% in time. But with music, where things are much more personal, I think they should be higher and typically see them higher.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Hey - just wanted to add a follow-up to this for anyone who's interested.
I just got off the phone with AWeber; they told me that if you're sending plain text emails (which I am) rather than html, just opening the email doesn't count towards your open rate - the subscriber has to click a link in your email for it to register as an open.
Think I'll try sending html emails for a while and see what kind of results I get (in addition to other general improvements).
Hope this info helps someone else, too.
"Radio Nowhere? What the hell is that? We wanted him to be a lawyer" — My Mom
Okay, so she didn't like it. But you just might! Loud guitars, award-winning songwriting, and visits from the devil.
Check it out and pick up a free EP here..
Ahhhh, great to know. I use the old email editor and always send html emails. Without html they can't actually track anything beyond the clicks. I'm sure that is the cause of your bad open rates. Thanks for letting us know.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.