Three Tips for Gaining Excellent
Click-Through Rates

Lisa Keller of The Loud Few liked what she saw in the "Q4 2010 North America Email Trend and Benchmark Results" from EEC and Epsilon. "Our average Click Through Rate (32.01%) and average Open Rate (40.99%) for our monthly tLF newsletters were far beyond the Business Products and Services General industry average Open Rate (21.9%) and Click Through Rate (3.8%)," she writes at her agency's blog.

So how does The Loud Few achieve its exceptional rates? According to Keller, it's with traits like these: 

Its newsletters contain exclusive content. If blog visitors, Twitter followers, Facebook fans and email subscribers all get the same information, a customer has little incentive to interact with you in every channel. "So," Keller says, "we made it a point to include exclusive content in our email newsletters that only our email subscribers receive."

The type of content varies from issue to issue. A subscriber won't see the same format each time he opens a Loud Few newsletter. It might have a favorite blog post, a helpful download or other resources that benefit the reader. "We've found that by providing a variety of content (instead of just one main article or announcement), you can improve or maintain a good Click Through Rate," Keller explains.

Its subject lines undergo continuous testing. Each newsletter's subject line goes through an A/B test, and the winner goes to the rest of the email list. "Over time, you can begin to see trends of what types of content people respond to ... in their inbox," she notes.

Conclusion: We all seek out a treat. Give your subscribers compelling reasons to click through again and again, and they will.