The Importance of the Email Follow-Up

Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your customers and prospects, build consumer trust and brand recognition, and increase conversion rates and sales—but if you’re not doing a follow-up, you’re missing out on a lot of potential.

How following up helps

Open rates are an important part of any email marketing campaign. The more people that click on your subject line and read what you have to say, the better results you’ll see. And by using follow-up campaigns, you can see up to a 5 percent increase in your open rate.

There are many reasons people might not open your marketing messages—and they’re not all due to lack of interest or ineffective subject lines. The time of day and the day of the week your emails are received can affect your open rates.

Another factor is the amount of time that passes between the moment a message hits the inbox and when the recipient sees it. The longer the gap, the less likely the recipient is to open the message. An infographic from the marketing tips blog GetResponse.com reports that 23.63% of emails are opened within one hour after delivery—while 24 hours after delivery, the open rate is nearly zero.

This means if you send a follow-up to non-openers on a different day and at a different time, you could see more click-throughs.

Tips for optimizing follow-up campaigns

1. Wait around a week to follow up with non-openers—if you send another message in the next day or so, it will be viewed as spamming and they’ll unsubscribe from your list.
2. Time your messages for optimal response. GetResponse.com notes that the top engagement times for subscribers are between 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. These time periods have an average 6.8% open rates and click-through rates.
3. Use automated delivery to simplify your follow-up campaigns—and your business life in general.

Need a reliable automation system with high delivery rates and detailed analytics to track your email marketing and follow-up campaigns? Contact Informatix to learn more about our marketing automation services and email marketing solutions.