I have a jam-packed day today, so I have a silly little story for you about the most mischievous thing I do as a subscriber to more stupid email newsletters than I can count.
Back when I first started freelancing, one of the classic mistakes I made was signing up for brands’ newsletters without first qualifying them. I was young and dumb and hungry, and so I figured I could give these brands a personalized breakdown of their email strategy as my way of providing value to them before pitching them my services.
Well, I don’t think any of these newsletters I subscribed to resulted in a new client because I didn’t qualify them.
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering, how the heck any of this is mischievous.
And you’d be right. Everything I’ve said up to now sounds quite flaccid and unspectacular.
And I don’t want to set your expectations too high, but today’s story is quite unspectacular too. But it has a dash of mischief and silliness to it too.
Ready for it?
Instead of unsubscribing from most of these newsletters, I’ve been simply opening random ones to “mess” with them.
I’m not doing this in a nefarious way… Or am I 😈
No, I’m not.
In fact, I’m opening random emails to throw off their open rates for a very specific point…
To prove a point I’ve made several times throughout these emails…
And, in my own little weird way, to help them become better at email marketing…
The reason?
Open rates don’t matter.
I’ve sent a million examples (okay, maybe not THAT many) of open rates being useless when you look at the amount of revenue they generate. Some emails get a wildly high open rate, but don’t make many sales. Others have a lower open rate, but absolutely rake in sales.
There’s no rhyme or reason to why.
And sure, you should always be trying to write better and better subject lines, but the cold, hard truth is you can’t take your brands’ average open rate, no matter how high it is, and take it to the bank in exchange for cold, hard cheddar.
Anywho:
If you need help generating more sales from every email you send out, hit reply, and let’s chat.
John
Comments