- June 18, 2014
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What Scoop.it Can Teach Us from Two Years of Email Marketing Data
Content: It’s the foundation for almost everything we do as integrated marketers. And also the most-difficult data to measure.
And for Scoop.it – the publishing-by-curation platform that helps professionals, people and businesses develop their online visibility on their favorite topics and shine on the web — content is its sole product, so measuring its effectiveness and audience engagement is critical. For the past two years, the company has published email newsletters. On its blog, Scoop.it Co-Founder and CEO Guillaume Decugis candidly shared what the company has learned about its email marketing data, so other integrated marketers could reap the knowledge benefits.
Here’s what the serial entrepreneur had to say:
Content performs much better than promotion
You might feel compelled to email enticing offers about your products and services to boost your bottom line, but most audiences will yawn at your content. Decugis discovered that, on average, content beat promotion 2.2 times on open rates and 6.0 times on click rates. The data suggested that you must entertain them before asking them to buy something.
Timing of campaigns is not entirely critical
If you’re tired of reading the data on when to tweet, email or conduct another integrated marketing outreach, Decugis might have some good news for you: “While we saw some slightly higher performance of campaigns sent on Monday afternoons, the differences don’t seem to be very statistically significant.” Note that Scoop.it has an international user base, so this may account for the statistic.
One, two, three may be the key
Scoop.it discovered that including numbers in the subject lines boosted open rate. In fact, Decugis revealed that nine out of its top 10 best-performing email newsletters had numbers in their subject lines. Curious about its top-performing email? With a whopping 45 percent open rate, the email with the subject line, “5 tips for hacking social media, optimizing for Twitter, and promoting at the right time” won. For other ideas on writing emails that prompt action, read our cheat sheet, “Supercharge Email Subject Lines.”
Don’t drop names
Scoop.it also learned that piggybacking on famous brand names didn’t pay off for them, a lesson in data we bet surprises most integrated marketers. “Frankly, we didn’t find strong evidence of an impact, as we found the number of subject lines with famous brand names to those without them to be essentially the same,” Decugis explained.
Lack of relevant content is the No. 1 hurdle
Decugis says he respects the art of writing, but it must correspond with the frequency of campaigns. He explained further, “In other words, our best months were not the ones where we had just one or two exceptional campaigns, but were months where we were able to send newsletters every week.”
Now, you might be wondering, “Just how much content do I need to produce?” We published an easy data formula for you to follow.
Scoop.it did what most marketers do not: measure their efforts. Do you know whether your content marketing campaign is having the desired effect? Without the right metrics in place and the ability to monitor them, it’s hard to determine the return on investment (ROI) or even tell if your integrated marketing goals are being reached. Here’s how to find out: “Measuring the Success of Your Content Marketing.”
