There continues to be a decline in email marketing click-through rates—down by 27% from 2011 according to the 2013 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study.
While this is a growing and concerning trend, the scope of a click-through rate might be skewing the overall effective reach of your campaign. To paraphrase Dela Quist: Forget click-through rates, focus on click-through reach.
Click-through reach is a measure of how many subscribers clicked a link in your email over a period of time, rather than a specific impact.
This measurement gives you a more accurate picture of how your entire file is responding to your overall marketing communication, instead of looking at a single offer in a vacuum. But for it to work, you might need to reconsider your impact calendar.
Do you only send one email per marketing effort? If so, you might be missing out on a lot of potential conversions. You can’t expect all of your subscribers to open every email, let alone click on it. But if you provide a variety of subject lines and creative approaches to a marketing effort across a campaign, you greatly increase your click-through reach.
As you approach your marketing impact calendar, consider turning your email marketing efforts into campaigns that will further the reach of your message.