Most College Students Take Action on Relevant Email Messages
It may seem merely intuitive that college students and recent graduates overwhelmingly report that they only act on emails which are relevant to them, but that probably comes as a surprise to some of the organizations out there who are engaged in what can only be generously referred to as email marketing.
Our biggest product by revenue for years has been targeted email campaigns so this is an area that we watch closely. We have an email database of 10 million college students, recent graduates, and alumni (the largest in the industry) which is 100 percent double opt-in (the highest standard in the industry), a single click for unsubscribing (also the highest standard in the industry), and up to 700 fields of data per candidate (far more than our competitors so we can do a much, much better job of targeting than can they). We're good at what we do and it shows: our average response rate is about three times the industry average.
We've seen the industry average response rates to email marketing messages drop and many of our competitors drop out because so many didn't get that email marketing is more than just sending marketing messages out by email. Many of our competitors and some of our clients refer to the product as an "email blast," which always causes me to cringe. That seems to imply that we're delivering emails on behalf of our clients using a shotgun approach: send enough out and something is bound to stick. And then those competitors and clients wonder why only a tiny, tiny fraction of the emails are actually opened (read) and only a tiny, tiny fraction of those are acted upon by the recipients. The reason is that the messages are going to the wrong people, or at least too high a percentage of them are going to the wrong people.
Employers and others who want to promote their opportunities need to think of email marketing as more akin to hunting with a rifle than a shotgun. It is far better for us to deliver 50,000 well targeted emails than 200,000 poorly targeted emails even though we would make almost four times the money on the latter blast. Why do we prefer to make less money by sending to 50,000 than 200,000? Simple. We know that if we were to deliver 200,000 poorly targeted emails then the response rate will be poor and we won't get repeat business and referrals. But if we deliver 50,000 well targeted emails we will likely deliver a great response rate, get renewals from that client for a long time, and get a lot of great referrals from that client.
A recent study by eROI backs up our thinking. They surveyed college students about email marketing and found that only 16 percent read marketing emails on a frequent basis and 66 of students rarely or never take action on marketing emails. Why? Again, most college students feel that companies' advertising is not effectively speaking to them personally:
- 60 percent of students take action upon receiving an email only if they are interested in the product;
- 47 percent; take action if they are attracted to a special offer; and
- 11% of students take action because of the design of an email.
So if someone tells you that email marketing is dead, tell them they are wrong. What is dead, and actually should never have lived, is irrelevant email marketing. Think of the emails in your inbox. Which ones do you read? Overwhelmingly only those which are relevant to your needs and wants. So why should we think that the response would be any different from the college students and recent graduates to which we want to market our opportunities?
Tip of the Hat: Art Koff from RetiredBrains.com for bringing this information to my attention.
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