Bulk email software is the preferred tool used for sending out newsletters. What’s good is that newsletter software is offered by many companies. But before embarking on an email marketing campaign to promote your product, make sure that your email promotions or newsletters look attractive. If possible hire a graphic designer to design the template of your newsletter. If your email campaign is for promotional offers which end on a particular date, highlight that in the subject line of your email.

Newsletter Software Monitoring – Key Metrics

Monitor your email campaign numbers. Most newsletter software and email marketing services provide detailed statistics of the number of emails that were read, “clicked-through” or bounced. Analyze this data carefully and keep an eye out for the following.

Your email marketing software will tell you the percentage of your emails that was delivered. This number usually indicates the ratio of total number of mails sent out viz-a-viz the total less the number which bounced. However, the delivered number also includes the emails deleted silently by various spam filters and also does not take into account the number of emails delivered into the spam or junk folders of the recipient. These folders are normally not opened and mails in these folders are automatically deleted after a certain period. Hence, an effective delivery monitoring service is essential for effective email marketing.

Low ‘Unsubscribe’ Rates? Is It Something To Cheer About?

A recipient of an unsolicited mail has a number of options. One to click on the unsubscribe button, second, to mark the mail as spam so that henceforth it automatically gets directed to the spam folder, or he can also just check the button next to the sender’s name and hit ‘delete’. At times users do not click on ‘unsubscribe’ as they are doubtful of whether the option will work and he just finds it easier to direct such mails to his spam folder.

‘Forward Rates’- What Do They Tell You?

Forward rates as indicated by the forward link in the body of your email might not tell you much as most people forward mails by clicking on the forward button in their email service. Similarly data on ‘open rates’ are often not measured accurately as some software detects emails which are opened with the images blocked as unopened.

Average Open Rates – Not Quite Accurate

Another thing to keep in mind is determining whether the same person or different people are opening a series of emails sent by you. In many cases the number spewed out by your newsletter software is an average across all recipients. Hence this number might not give you any information on the effectiveness of your program with individual recipients.

What Should You Do To Increase The Effectiveness Of Your Newsletter Software?

The important thing to do is to ask the right questions from your newsletter software. Some of these could be “how many recipients opened at least one email in the past two months?” or “which set of email addresses got the maximum open rate?” Attempt to break down the numbers presented by your newsletter software to really understand what they are telling you. For recipients listed as inactive for extended periods, try sending them a mail on a different subject in an attempt to reengage them.

Thus assessing the analysis turned in by your newsletter software is the key to understanding the real effectiveness of your email marketing software.