The Paradox of Email

Nobody’s opening my emails

If you trawl past campaigns, you may get frustrated at the low number of people following links from your emails to your web content (click through) and the number of emails opened (open rates). MailChimp, an email marketing company, have calculated the average unique open and click rates of hundreds of millions of emails delivered by their system.

As of March 2016, the average open rate is 22% and the average click rate is 2.7%. Putting those statistics into context, if you’re sending out an email campaign to a database of 5000 customers, only 1100 of those will open the email, and just 135 will click through. Sounds unfair, right?

But everybody wants to be communicated by email?

Even though open and click rates aren’t particularly impressive, what is apparent is that the channel continues to be the best way that consumers want to be contacted. A Dotmailer study found that 70% of 18-24 year olds want email to be the main way that brands communicate with them. Furthermore, 50% of the people asked acknowledged using email on the go.

It is apparent that email is heavily used, but if that is the case, why are so few people opening and reading them?

The answer: Make it relevant!

Two thirds of emails that consumers receive have no relevance or interest to them. Giving your customers relevant information that they will want to read and engage with, at a time that suits them, will mean you reap the rewards that email has to offer. People want to be contacted by email, it just so happens that the majority of communications that are sent, tend not to be relevant or engaging so response rates are low. Make your content relevant and exciting, and those response rates will increase.

Emails containing sensitive information

Email, if used correctly, can be a great way to get your message across. But when sending information that contains sensitive or financial content, we recommend using alternative methods of communication that are more secure. Watch our video on MultiChannel and discover how to deliver these types of documents differently.