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2012 B2B Email Response Rates and Best Practices
by Mary Gospe

Despite the growth in social media and mobile marketing, the use of email to reach Business to Business (B2B) buyers remains a top marketing tactic. So how do you know if your email programs are successful? What can you do to improve results? In this article, I'll provide average response rates and several best practices to optimize your programs.

Definitions Vary:
Marketers measure email performance by tracking open rates and click-through rates (CTRs). The open rate shows how many people opened an HTML email. This is tracked by an invisible image embedded in the HTML that is loaded by the recipient's email client. Keep in mind that open rates may be impacted by Outlook preview panes or other clients that render images (counting an open) when in fact the recipient actually didn't click to view the email. It's an imprecise figure, but often used for benchmarking.

The CTR can be calculated two ways, so if you are using a marketing automation tool, check their process. In VerticalResponse, the CTR is measured by how many times each link within an email is clicked divided by the number of emails sent. It does not include clicks on the unsubscribe link but it does include multiple clicks on a single link by the same person. In Marketo, the CTR is calculated as clicks divided by emails delivered, meaning that bounces are removed from the denominator.

Another measurement that is sometimes used is the click to open rate (CTOP) which is calculated as the number of clicks divided by the number of opens. Use caution with this metric since open rates can be misleading as described above.

To measure conversion rates, look at the number of unique click-throughs to a landing page and then the number of unique people who submitted a form to obtain the offer. Divide by the number of emails delivered or opened to get your conversion rates. For example, the number of people who filled out the form for an offer divided by the number of emails delivered will tell you how well your offer is pulling.

Open Rate and CTR Averages:
Epsilon, a global marketing services firm based in Texas, and the Direct Marketing Association's Email Experience Council recently published the Q3 2011 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks Results. The report showed average open rates of 23.8% and click rates of 5.5% for emails sent by Epsilon across multiple industries. Open rates increased 0.3 percentage points from Q2 2011, while click rates remained constant over the last couple of years.

Open rates and click rates vary by the audience and type of email. An email to a rented or third party list will typically not get the same results as an email to your house list. Here are some additional metrics you can use as benchmarks:

  • Prospecting emails to fresh lists typically get open rates of 9%-15% and CTRs of 2.8%-3.2%. Marketo views open rates of 16%-20% as top performers. The average CTR per Marketo is 2.1%-5% with 5.1%-10% viewed as top performers.
  • A newsletter to a B2B house list is getting open rates of 18%-22% and CTRs of 3%-11%. This is consistent with MarketingSherpa's 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report in which 1,500 survey respondents reported an average open rate of 23% for B2B newsletters and an 11% CTR.
  • A non-profit organization sends a monthly newsletter to its house list and typically sees open rates of 25%-30% and CTRs of 4%-6%.
  • Follow-up emails to webinar or event attendees get much higher results with one example of an open rate of 31% and CTR of 55%.

Best Practices:
Here are seven best practices to help you improve your email marketing effectiveness:

  • Segment your database or list to target a specific audience with the most relevant content. According to MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008, sending targeted messages according to job title, geography, industry, and stage in your marketing and sales process increases open rates by 200%.
  • Provide relevant content to your prospects and customers that maps to where they are in their buying cycle. Content that educates your audience—what they need to know to be successful in their job, or how your customers solved a business problem with your product—are popular. Consider licensing content from well-respected 3rd party publishers such as analysts or respected business journals. One client who typically received 250 click throughs from white papers received six times that amount when offering an article from a prestigious business journal.
  • Design the email for maximum deliverability so that content and offers are easily viewable in preview panes and on mobile devices. In both the email and landing page, use short copy, bullet points and a clear call to action. Limit graphics so the email loads quickly.
  • Test subject lines and design elements to determine which elements maximize response rates.
  • Continually build and cleanse your database. You can outsource this function to firms such as SMARTe, Inc. or use data.com from Salesforce.com that combines Jigsaw data with that of Dun & Bradstreet to build account and contact information.
  • Use a marketing automation tool such as Marketo to manage opt ins, unsubscribes and to set up automated drip marketing emails to nurture prospects.
  • Integrate your email programs with other marketing mix elements (web, videos, social media, blogs, sales development calls) to increase the chance that your message will be heard.

Conclusion:
Email response rates vary by industry, by how well known your brand is, and whether you are emailing to rented lists, media subscribers or your own house list. Although I've provided some open rate and CTR averages from industry sources and my own personal experience, the best method to gauge your success is to benchmark your programs over time and continually test content, offers, and design elements to optimize your results.

About the Author:
Mary Gospe is principal and co-founder of KickStart Alliance. She helps B2B tech and clean tech companies build and nurture their sales pipelines through integrated marketing campaigns, sales development programs and inside sales operations. For more information, contact Mary Gospe at 650.941.8970. You can follow Mary on Twitter at www.twitter.com/marygospe

January 2012