7 Steps to Increasing Your E mail Open Rate

Of late, all the marketing talk is about social media, Email, Facebook, My-space, Yelp, Twitter. The list goes on and on. It seems that new ways to communicate with your audience spring up almost every hour. Left in the lurch are traditional media outlets like cable TV and radio. Some proprietors have abandoned these communication vehicles entirely, relying instead on social media to bring home the message.

Is that right? Should we abandon these forms of communication completely? I don't think so.

In several case studies, where I have added or subtracted radio and or TV to to the mix, I discovered time after time that when I ADD radio or TV to my social media campaign I get a greater "open rate" on my emails and a greater click through. Normally, less than 15% of your email gets opened. Some pundits claim it is down to less than 10%. By adding TV or radio, I get my open rate up to 30% or even 400%

But the trick is in the timing. Here's an example. Let's say you want to promote your cosmic bowling on Friday and Saturday night.

1. I send an email out on Wednesday to my 18 to 34 yr olds telling them of a special weekend offer I.e, Bring a friend and the friend bowls at half price or Bring 5 people per lane and get a free pizza or any offer you can think of.

2. I run my radio schedule or cable TV schedule from Wednesday to Friday, about 35 to 40 spots across 4 or 5 networks like MTV, Cartoon Network, Spike TV, ESPN2 or any other network in your market that may index highest against the target audience (Your media rep can show you these indexes.)

3. I run these spots in the 4pm to midnight time period. I also ask for lots of $1 spots between midnight and 2am. This 18 to 34 audience stays up late!

4. I communicate the same offer on TV as I do in in my email, but the call to action is to go to the website and print out the coupon. If I am using radio, I try to buy AM drive and PM drive for these three days as well. Sure it costs more, but I am reaching a bigger audience MORE FREQUENTLY. And frequency is key. Some stations may have bigger audiences during the 10a to 3p slot and that becomes an attractive time period to buy radio because the price per spot could be as much as 40% to 50% less, yet the audience is only 25% less. Just make sure that the media rep can prove this to you over a series of ratings data that has been audited.

5. On Friday I send out a Facebook notice to all of my Facebook friends telling them of the same offer, attaching a coupon and asking them to pass it along to their friends.

6. On Friday, I also ask my employees to send the same message to their Facebook friends saying there is a special offer and if they go to our center's website they can get the special coupon as well.

7. When people come into the center on Friday and Saturday night and, if I still have lanes open, I ask my customers to call or text their friends and invite them to fill up a lane of 4 or more people. If their friends come in to bowl, I buy pizzas for the new friends and for the people at the center who called or texted their friends. To get $100, I will spend $7 on pizza costs!

By using this 7 step method for two or three weeks, I build a layered approach that has a better potential of reaching my target audience multiple times than just one email.

Try it; yes it is more expensive, but in many instances I have doubled my results. I hope you do too!