What is a Good Click-Through Rate?
Naturally, whenever you create and send an email campaign, your objective is to encourage as many recipients as possible to open your email and for them to interact with the content by clicking on the links it contains.
The email click through rate (CTR) that's reported by your email marketing system tells you the level of recipient engagement with your email campaign and it is measured as a percentage of recipients who clicked on at least one of the links in your email.
What counts as a good CTR? It varies between different sectors, but a good click through rate for email is generally considered to be between 2% and 5%. This level of engagement means that between 2% and 5% of the total email recipients clicked on a link or links within the email.
There are several simple things you can do to increase the number of people who click on the links in your email to view your services, offers and products. With professional email marketing software behind you, it’s really straightforward to do. The advantage of email marketing is that real-time campaign reporting allows you to instantly see what’s working and what to improve by checking the email click-through rate across your campaigns.
1. Include a picture
‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ and a well-chosen image or graphic is far more eye-catching than a long piece of text. A picture can grab someone’s attention instantly, and convey so much more information (so much more swiftly), than text alone.
Make sure that it’s in focus, makes good use of the frame and correctly portrays what you have in mind. And, of course, don't forget to add your hyperlink so it takes the reader to the desired destination when they click on it!
2. Send at the best time
Make sure your email is more likely to be opened and acted upon by your subscribers by ensuring it lands in their inbox at the optimum time. The start of the work day, at around 9.00 or 9.15 am can be a good place to start, but you could try sending emails at different times of the day. Check your email marketing reporting feature to see what works best for your subscribers, including when they are most likely to engage with your campaigns by clicking on the content.
Smart Messenger allows you to schedule each email to be sent at the optimum time of day for the location of each recipient.
3. Create tailored offers
People won’t click on something that is of no interest to them, no matter how good the product or service is. You wouldn't advertise dog food to cat owners and the same applies to your email campaigns. Ensure you know your audience and segment your contact list according to their industry sector, geographical location or product interest - whatever criteria are most relevant to your campaign. Then tailor-make campaigns for each segment, creating content that's interesting and relevant, so they're more likely to engage with it by clicking on your links.
Smart Messenger allows you to have multiple contact lists and gives you access to powerful segmentation tools, so you can manage your different audiences easily and improve your all-important click-through rate.
6. Add a video
Video content is easy for recipients to engage with and including video can dramatically increase click-through rates. Why not give it a try to see if it works for you too? All smartphones can shoot videos, and you don’t need to be an editing whizz to make something engaging and entertaining.
Video ideas could include a tour of your business, a demonstration of how to use a product or service, or a personal introduction to your account manager. Some people prefer reading instruction manuals but others find a video more helpful, so why not give them the choice and create both?