Hey private practice heroes – it’s Kathy Colaiacovo and today on the Marketing your Private practice with Kathy C podcast we are going to talk newsletters and emails, and the 5 factors that affect your email marketing results and tactics you can take to get more people opening and reading your emails.
Because if you are going to take the time to do this type of communication – you want to do whatever you can to increase the chances of people consuming that info by increasing your deliverability rate and your open and click rates too.
Now, if you are listening and thinking – well Kathy, I don’t send newsletters or have an email system so I’m gonna skip this episode today, WAIT! I encourage you to check it out because there are some ideas we’re going to talk about that may have you change your mind – and I’m going to share a story that helps you see the value of sending a consistent newsletter but how they can make a difference even if someone doesn’t open it and read your email! True story …. I promise you will learn something to improve your marketing and help you get more clients.
Newsletters. Practice and Business owners everywhere use newsletters to communicate and engage with the people on their email marketing list because they know it is one of the best ways to nurture your community.
Nurturing them can lead to more clients and more sales.
Now, not everyone on your list is a client already. Some are just leads or prospects, some will be clients, some might be past clients, and many will be potential future clients. Some could become repeat clients. Clients who buy from you multiple times.
This is why communicating with them on a consistent basis is so important as part of your overall marketing strategy. It will take multiple touch points with you for someone to build up that trust and know that you could be the one to help them – the person to solve their problems. Newsletters help you make these touchpoints happen.
Some folks also think they should stop doing newsletters when they have a full practice. No way! This time is more important than ever to keep marketing. You want to build those leads and that community because any day any client could give notice or more than one. Keep up with your marketing so you can continue to stay top of mind with people.
So yes, even when your practice or business has a waitlist, you want to continue marketing. Continue sending newsletters helps you communicate with the people already connected to you and on your email marketing list. You might slow it down but don’t stop!
And if you asked my opinion – if you were too busy to do marketing and had to choose between sending newsletters to people on your list OR posting content on social media … I would tell you to choose the newsletters probably 100% of the time.
More sales happen from emails and more business owners get a proven ROI on email marketing than they do from social media.
So if you ever have to choose – choose to do the news.
And of course, if you’ve been listening at all to my podcast, and reading my social media content you know that you want to be consistent with your newsletters and that you can also repurpose that newsletter article to become almost all of your social media content – so it is possible to have your cake and eat it too!
If you want some ideas on how to do this listen in to episode 30 of the podcast, Simplify Your Private Practice Marketing: Cut Down on Content Creation – I’ll put a link to that in the shownotes.
The thing is … your community will remember you because of your emails – even if they don’t open and devour word for word every one of your newsletters.
Just your name in the sender line in their inbox is enough to trigger them to remember you. To know you are there for whenever they need you.
Here’s an example of how I let this lesson hit home with a client of mine once.
So I had a client who was a lawyer. I’ll call her Janine.
She wanted a marketing strategy in place for her practice, but she was very adamant she did not want to do newsletters; she doesn’t like getting emails, her inbox is full, and she didn’t want to do that to people.
So here’s the thing, we sat down and talked about this because as you know I believe in newsletters as one of the best ways to do your marketing and stay top of mind with people.
We did a little role play there and I said, “okay, let’s just think about this.” So I said, “think about your inbox and even look at it now.” And I had her look at it and I said, “look for some newsletters that are there.” I said, “find me the first one that you see.”
And she said, “okay, I’ve got one here from this guy.”
I said, “okay, what’s his name?”
And she told me his name and I said, “do you remember what he does?”
Yes, he does XXX. I can’t remember what it was.
I said, “okay, now how do you know this person?”
She said, “well, I actually met him on LinkedIn. And he asked if I wanted to sign up for his newsletter. And he gave me a link. So I did. And I signed up there. Or I think I had him sign me up.”
She couldn’t remember which way it was. But either way, she got onto this person’s newsletter list because of a connection on LinkedIn.
I said, “okay, do you open the emails from him?”
“No.”
I said, “why don’t you open them?”
“I’m usually too busy to read them.”
“Okay,” I said, “do you know what he does?”
“Yes.”
“And do you know what services he offers?”
And she said, “yes, he does, blah, blah, blah,” … whatever that was.
I said, “okay, but you’ve never read his newsletters when they come in, you don’t open them, you just kind of look at the subject line, look at the name, and then you delete it.”
She said, “yeah, that’s what I do.”
I said, “okay, if you need help with XXX, whatever, whatever.” I said, “who would be somebody that you know you could reach out to?”
And she just looked at me and she’s like, “oh crap, yeah, that would be him because he does whatever it was that he offered.”
And I said, “see, this is where you often think about newsletters from the point of view of being inundated with them in your inbox. But when you go to it from the other side of it, they really do work and they help you stay top of mind with people. Even if right now they’re just a lead or a connection or a community member, they can make a really big difference.”
When we look at email marketing, you have to remember, it’s not just that you want to be sending the emails and the newsletters, you really want to have a strategy behind it. And you really do want people opening them and reading the content and even taking action and clicking on the links you might have in it.
So although we learned the lesson with Janine that it is still making a difference, even if people don’t open it, I really want people opening your newsletters because we don’t wanna be taking our time doing the marketing and doing all the work behind it and just having people sit there and never really read it.
So you really want to make sure that you’re looking at tactics that help people open those. We want your emails and newsletters to have a high deliverability rate and a high open rate, meaning you want more people to receive the emails and open the emails.
And when we talk about these different factors when it comes to email marketing. Receiving the email in someone’s inbox, that’s all about your deliverability. The deliverability rate is how many people are getting the email in their inbox.
Now I say that because there are some systems out there that not everyone you send the email to will actually get it in their inbox and we’ll talk about that in a second. So then we look at you’ve got them in the inbox, you want them to read them, you want to open them.
And the percentage of people who do this, that is called your open rate. It means how many people have actually clicked and opened the email to see all of the content.
Then if you have any special links in the emails, you want to know if people are taking action and clicking them, most email marketing systems will show you those numbers. And that is your click rate, the percentage of people who clicked on the rates from the amount of people that opened the email.
So when you hear folks talk about these terms, when it comes to email marketing, now you know what they mean. Deliverability, open rate, and click rate.
The fact is the average open rate is around 20 to 22% (Meaning 20% of the people who got your email opened it) with a click rate average of about 1-3% (people who clicked a link in your email).
So here’s how it works. If you have 100 people on your email list, when you send your newsletter out to them, probably on average 20 or 30 are going to open it. So 100 people got your email, as long as it was delivered to all of them. Again, some email systems kind of drop some emails, so your deliverability could be only getting the email to 98 people. and maybe 20 or 30 open it.
Now don’t be dismayed – this is the reality of email marketing but there are things you can do to improve these rates and ensure more people are getting your emails and opening them… and then taking action.
There are tactics you can do as you create and prep your newsletter in your email marketing system to help boost these rates and get more people consuming your content.
So let’s dig into the 5 Factors that can affect your Email Deliverability and Open Rates
1. Email Marketing System you are using.
One of the first things that may affect your email open rates is the system you are using. Yes, the email marketing system you use can determine your deliverability and open rates. Some systems actually get higher rates, just because.
I‘ve worked with more than 8 systems for my own business and for my clients, and have seen open rates with all of them: Constant Contact, 1 Shopping Cart, MailChimp, Aweber, Mailerlite, Infusionsoft, ConvertKit and Kajabi.
Some of them inherently get better deliverability and open rates than others. I can say this because I have moved people from one system to another, and we changed nothing except the system and the open rates were very different. Improved by more than ten percent in some cases. Yes. A 10 percent increase!
In my opinion, one that has the best rates is ConvertKit. They were built on the premise of ensuring high deliverability and having a system that generates clean emails. The rates are higher because of how they were set up to send emails through the servers they use and because they were clean and not filled with lots of coding. This history has followed them for years and that good reputation helps their clients see better results.
In 2019 I moved from Infusionsoft with about 18% open rates to Kajabi with about 22%. Then after 6 months when I saw a lot of ‘dropped’ emails not even being sent to the folks, I moved to ConvertKit and my rates went up almost immediately to 28%. One client of mine moved to ConvertKit and went from about 23% to 32%. Again no change except the system.
These numbers are critical to know and track because the more people getting and opening your emails, the more chances you have that they will take action from the content you send them.
Now, these days many folks have seen a boost in email rates because of some changes made with Apple’s privacy setup. I go into more detail on this topic in a blog on my website titled – 7 Items to Change with your Email Marketing so be sure the read that and I will have a link to it in the shownotes.
The reality is some systems will get better open rates than others. Start by knowing what your rates are and tracking them to see if there is a shift in anything by trying some of these tactics. If not and your rates continue to be low – you may want to consider a change. I am NOT in any way advocating jumping from system to system – that is a ton of work. But sometimes it is worth trying out and see if the grass really is greener on the other side.
The second factor to consider in how you can make changes is:
2. The Email System your Subscribers are using.
Yes, surprise, this factor is one you have no control over. None. The system your subscribers use for their own email is also a factor in your deliverability and open rates. Yahoo and Hotmail are systems that have been around for years, and they are really great at blocking emails. Folks using Outlook often complain about emails that look wonky. Google and Gmail users often miss emails because they get put into the ‘promotions’ tab in Gmail automatically and the user forgets to look there.
Google often sends things to spam and no matter how hard you try you cannot get them to keep those emails out of that spam folder.
So this factor is not one you can control. But here is the best trick to help.
When people sign up for your lead magnets (freebies), have a special message on your thank you page. Tell them to check their inbox and to whitelist your email address and add it to their contacts. Advise them to check their promotions tab if they use Google or Gmail. Tell them to check their spam folders as well.
Let them know that if they do not get the email to send you an email and you will help. Do what you can to let folks know that you have sent an email and that they need to look for it. If they can get you whitelisted right away this helps them get more in their regular spot in the inbox and helps your deliverability rates go up.
The third factor in this list is subject lines.
3. Subject Lines.
People often underestimate the power of their subject lines. But they are the #1 deciding factor on whether someone opens that email or not.
You cannot just skip over this in your planning; you need to take time and think about what subject line you will use. Think about what will entice people to open your email? Think hard. And come up with a subject line that will get more people to click and open that email.
I have written on this before but here are the top strategies when it comes to subject lines:
- Keep it short so it is easy to understand and so it shows on a mobile device too (50 -60 characters is ideal, but you can go to 140).
- Get people curious and use words that make them want to open it but do not give away everything you are sharing. If your subject line includes anything that will allow your subscriber to prejudge the inside content, they may decide they don’t need that info.
- Use your subscribers name and make it personal (use your email system’s “personalize tools” to do this).
- Try adding emojis to make them stand out (not all systems work with this).
- Avoid ALL CAPS, lots of punctuation (!?!!!) and spam trigger words (like free, earn income, make $$ , make money) There are more trigger words that some systems flag and Hubspot has a great list of them on a blog on their website – I will link to that for you as well.
- Some email systems will do a spam check for you – always use this, and test it out.
Take the time to plan your subject lines! It really does help.
4. Test your email and see what it looks like on Mobile.
In today’s world of cell phones, tablets and mobile devices, more and more people are using these to read and check emails.
If your email cannot be easily viewed on a mobile device, chances are it will get deleted instantly. One study I read said that if an email is not formatted for their mobile device, no matter how much they love your content, it will probably be deleted in less than three seconds. 3 seconds.
What does “not formatted” for mobile mean?
Well, typically these are emails where:
- Images are out of place
- Images only show part on the screen because they are too large
- Emails with all text and nothing breaking it up
- Using columns that do not show well, or even in order on a mobile device
Most email systems these days have a preview option where you can see the email on desktop, mobile phone or even tablet view. Not everyone checks these before sending and you need to do this. It takes under 2 minutes to get a preview of all three, way more time than it will take someone to delete your email because they cannot read it on their phone.
And by the way doing a test and proof is critical and helps you avoid being the person sending out one of those OOPS emails because there was a big error not caught because the proof/test step in your process was not done.
5. Track and Review your Numbers and Stats.
This is something few people take the time to do. Keeping track of your open and click rates to know what is working or not.
Again, it is not something that takes a long time to do, but few people take the time and it can be SOOOO helpful. Looking at your reports can give you clues as to what is working and what is not, so you can make changes and try something new to get a better result the next time.
I have a simple excel file I use as a template for tracking these numbers. It’s my Stats tracking template. I pull the info from several systems each month – my email marketing reports, social media reports, podcast stats, google analytics and more. I compile them inot this tracking document and compare them – this helps you see trends and kow what to change / improve.
Yes, I know you can just use the reports in the system, but I find it hard to compare them this way. So, I created a file that we use for me and all of my clients. For email marketing, we input the date, subject line, and then the number of subscribers it was sent to, how many opened and clicked. It’s a lot easier to compare them all in a spreadsheet like this and it’s also a way you can notice trends that help you learn what to do more or less of.
I do this for myself and my clients, and it is also a module of training in the Thrive Marketing Academy as well so students can learn to do the same. Tracking numbers like this is so important to know how your marketing is working and what to change.
You can get a copy of my free stats tracking template. I will link to that in the shownotes but you can find it at pepperitmarketing.com/freestats. It also comes with a video showing you how to use it for your own
These five factors are ones you need to think about and consider when it comes to your email marketing.
- Email Marketing System you are using
- The Email System your Subscribers are using.
- Subject Lines
- Test for Mobile device viewing.
- Track and Review your Numbers and Stats
If you plan around them and follow some of the tactics, it will help you improve your email marketing deliverability and open rates. But you have to take the time to put these changes into your processes for doing your newsletters and emails. Don’t skimp on the planning or you’ll end up seen as spamming!
Your action steps from today?
Review these 5 steps and review your newsletter and email stats.
Can you spot any trends, any growth or decline? Then go through the list and decide for each of these 5 factors what ones could be affecting your email marketing results, then work on the tactic that can help you shift those results and see an uptick from what you are doing.
Now, if you’re not sure what to do when you check these 5 areas out? Why not book a free marketing audit with me. They are something I offer free as part of my podcast and we can focus on your email marketing and newsletters and see where the issue might be and what action step you need to take next.
You can book your free audit at pepperitmarketing.com/audit and I will link to that too.
This is Kathy Colaiacovo signing off by saying thanks for listening and remember to thrive in practice… this means taking the time to not only be consistent with your newsletters and making the changes to improve your email results because those results can lead to more clients!
I’ll see you next time!
Resources mentioned:
- Book your own Free Marketing Audit with Kathy C
- Ep. 30 of the podcast: Simplify Your Private Practice Marketing
- Blog on Apple’s Privacy changes
- Hubspot’s list of trigger words
- Free Stats Tracking Template
- Got Questions? DM Kathy on Instagram or Facebook