We get questions from our clients all the time about the merits of email responses vs. email click throughs – which should you track and measure? The answer is both are helpful. Click throughs can help you focus on which leads to target. Responses are vital to developing the lead.
Email Click Through Rates vs. Responses
At MarketLauncher, we look at it in terms of levels within the funnel. Click throughs are a possible lead. They are “lukewarm.” Click throughs may comprise those who are potentially interested in your services. Or it may include someone fishing for information. Doing research. Getting competitive intelligence. Just being curious. Any number of reasons.
Responses are now engaged. They’ve taken a proactive step. They’ve chosen to reply and start a one-on-one dialogue with your company. A response is a warm to hot lead. They have taken the time to indicate that there is a potential fit for your service offering. There is definitive interest in the moment.
Moving Email Leads Down the Sales Pipeline
The goal is to continue to move contacts through the lead funnel and develop the pipeline. A suspect is verified and deemed viable. That viable contact then receives communication. If they click through to the web site, then they get bumped up in the queue for additional communications and follow-up. If they respond, then they are pursued to determine need, timing, fit. Pursue responses until you get a yes or no/not now. Take your no/not nows and plan for nurturing and future re-engagement. Never stop looking for other like companies to add into the mix.
And then keep this process going over and over and over.
Email Marketing that Creates Sales Growth
It is through a consistent, methodical, cyclical approach that you can mine your market and find potential opportunities. Keep the pipeline moving and sales growth will come. If you are trying to determine what to measure – click throughs or responses – our answer is both. Have strategies to contact and nurture both. Put a process in place to develop your click throughs to response, and your responses to appointment, and your appointments to opportunity, and your opportunity to close, and your closes to renewal, and your renewals to upsell. And make sure your process is replicable and ongoing.
At MarketLauncher, we do this for you. We’ll be your eyes and ears in the market to drive those click throughs, generate response and turn them into prospects. You in turn will turn those prospects into closed business. In our world, that process never stops.
