I want to share 2 newsletter best practice tips you may not be doing. Creating your newsletter and getting it out on time is an achievement in itself but to truly leverage your emails you’ve only just started. The magic and opportunities happen after you click that send button.
What to do after you click ‘Send’
#1 Resend to Unopens
The first thing you want to do after pressing send is replicate the campaign and send in a couple of days to the segment of your list who don’t open the email. We often use a different subject and preview text to see if this improves open rates.
Here’s how to do this:
#2 Study your Mailchimp Reports
Here’s an example of a report I’ve compiled for a client based on the Mailchimp report following a newsletter send (and subsequent resend).
To pull together this report to determine actions we can take I opened both campaign reports in Mailchimp and concentrated on the open and click stats.
This is where the magic happens!
Using this information you can determine:
- Follow up emails giving more information, value and/or calls to actions for those who either opened your email multiple times or clicked through on a specific link. We’ll often reach out to high opens or specific click-throughs amongst our subscribers with a personal email or see if we can connect with a call.
- Compare open to previous campaigns to determine whether the subject line and preview text triggered them to open the email.
- Compare click rates to determine whether the content resonated with your subscribers.
- Use the click map in the report to see how the placement of clicks affected their performance. For example you may have the same URL hyperlinked to text, image, button, pre-header call to action etc. The click map will show you which placement worked best.
- Were unsubscribes high? Typically you’ll get increasing unsubscribes when sending an email sequence (particularly to an untargeted list) so don’t panic. But note the campaigns you’re getting a high percentage for and look at who they are.
- This information also gives you great data for your online marketing, what’s resonating with your audience in your campaigns is what you should be sharing on social media. Follow up emails and calls can also be used to continue evolving your ideal customer avatar so you’re always aligned with how you can best serve your audience.
Here’s where to look in Mailchimp and what to do with what you see!
I hope you’ve found this article helpful!
If you would rather a ‘done for you’ approach with your newsletters you can purchase your email campaign with the click of a button here: