Newsletter email marketing promotions analyzed
I have completed my analysis of what’s working in newsletter email promotions for www.TheListWarehouse.com. We analyzed 7,914 email promotions over a 12-month period from Aug. 1, 2010 through July 31, 2011. The newsletter category represents about 4% of all email promotions on file. Data came from the EmailCampaignArchive.com database. If you have a category that you’d like us to feature in a future issue of our newsletter, please contact me. Newsletter Publishing Categories
There are 3 newsletter categories represented in this analysis. The highest volume of email promotions came from the General category with 5,460 promotions (69%), followed by Investment/Financial with 1,763 promotions (22%), and Bulk with 691 promotions (9%).
Newsletter Average Word Count
Investment/Financial newsletters had an average word count of 937 in the 2nd quarter of 2011. That compares to 540 for all categories, clearly indicating that investment/financial newsletters rely on long copy. For General newsletters the word count was 460, and for Bulk newsletters is was 504.
Newsletter Email Promotion Volume by Month
Newsletter email promotions are for the most part sent year-round. October of 2010 had the highest volume at 742, and July 2011 the lowest at 467. We’re entering the high season of newsletter email promotions (August, September, and October), with over 700 received per month.
KEY INSIGHT:
September and October are heavy months for newsletter email promotions, but November is light. Early November testing is suggested, followed by early January.
Email Delivery by Day
The newsletter category day of email delivery differs somewhat from that of all email marketers. Early in the week is more popular for newsletter promotions, with Wednesday as the day of highest deployments. Thursday and Friday are lighter for newsletter promotions compared to all email categories.
KEY INSIGHT:
We recommend that you test Monday versus Thursday or Friday deployments. Monday is intuitively a natural day for newsletter promotions to be sent, but we recommend comparing those results to the end of the week.
Time of Day
Newsletter promotions are deployed at a much higher rate during business hours than all other email (from 8 am to 5 pm). Over 76% of newsletter email is sent during the business day.
KEY INSIGHT
For newsletter publishers, we recommend testing earlier in the morning before most competition for other newsletter publisher, and that of all email marketers, in the 7 am to 8 am hour.