Guest blog post by Vivian Swertinski, Strategic Services Manager at Informz
The wait is over! The 2017 Association Email Marketing Benchmark Report is hot off the press and available for immediate download.
This benchmark report was designed exclusively for association marketers to gain insight into the performance of their peers, establish and measure their own email performance, and understand the impact of email marketing trends.
Email is the primary communication channel that connects for-profit and non-profit organizations with their audience. Over the past few years, big brand e-commerce companies have set the bar high for what audiences expect from digital communications. Even though associations don’t compete with companies like Amazon, none of us are exempt from audience expectations.
It Starts with the Data
Association marketers are moving away from sending broadcast undifferentiated email messages and are moving towards serving personally relevant content. Personalizing the member experience begins with leveraging the rich data that resides in member databases. Email platforms that integrate with member databases enable marketers to put real-time intelligence into their email communications.
In addition to utilizing an integrated email platform, many associations are adopting marketing automation technology to take their email marketing to the next level. Marketing automation technology gives organizations the ability to target and trigger dynamic email messages based on offline and online audience behavior.
A significant milestone in this year’s benchmark report is the first-time inclusion of marketing automation email metrics. The volume of email sent through marketing automation campaigns grew exponentially in 2016 – a 70% increase from prior years.
This increase is especially noteworthy given that marketing automation campaigns are highly customized messages sent to precise target groups. The marketing automation trend amongst associations is picking up as early adopters report higher engagement metrics and a positive return on their investment.
- Texas Medical Association increased educational course sales by 313% through an automated campaign that served customized content based on subscriber click activity.
- American Association of Airport Executives accelerated and increased event registration by 25%; attributing more than $19,000 to an automated campaign based on subscriber website behavior.
Key Trends
The key performance metrics show that highly targeted campaigns outperform mass email communications and that relevancy trumps frequency.
Below are key findings from the 2017 Association Email Marketing Benchmark Report:
Key Performance Metrics
- The average email metrics for associations include a 98.3% delivery rate, 35.6% open rate, and 15.6% click rate.
- Emails sent as part of a marketing automation campaign had higher engagement rates; a 98% delivery rate, 37.6% open rate, and 16.7% click rate.
Email Cadence and Timing
- Most subscribers (86.6%) were sent 10 or less emails per month.
- Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were higher volume send days, representing 64% of total email volume.
- Friday had the highest open rate of 36.7% and highest click rate of 16.2%.
Subject Lines
- Subject Lines with less than 10 characters had the highest average open rate at 44.0%. Here’s a sampling of short subject lines with strong open rates.
You’re In (95% open rate)
We did it! (69% open rate)
Interested? (66% open rate)
Need Your Help (73% open rate)
Calls to Action
- Emails containing between 3-7 links and emails with 31 or more links generated click rates greater than the 2016 benchmark average.
There are many other highlights in the 2017 Association Email Marketing Benchmark that will help associations understand what metrics to analyze, what goals to set and how they measure up to their peers. Get the full benchmark report today!