How to make your emails 260x more effective

I chatted with a client last week and we crunched some numbers. 

Over the past year, we’ve converted new email leads to the tune of 18.03%. 

Key words: new email leads. 

So, this conversion rate doesn’t account for conversions from older leads (which means the true conversion rate is even higher). 

Nor does this conversion rate factor in something even more important: The vast majority of new customers have also taken advantage of our Autoship program, which means, unless they cancel their subscription, they’ll also become repeat customers. 

Anywho: 

After figuring out this number and giving myself a high five, I decided to see what the Googles say about what an ideal email conversion rate oughtta be. 

And, boy, was it far lower than I suspected. 

Most articles landed at an arbitrary rate of just 2 to 5%. 

That means an 18.03% conversion rate is 260x more effective. 

That said, there was one article that landed on a much, much higher conversion rate. They said the average conversion rate for email was 15.22%. 

According to this ideal rate, I only perform 18.4% better than the average. However, as I read deeper into the article, I realized we have two very different definitions of what constitutes a conversion rate. 

My definition is, of course, the correct one: How many email subscribers became customers. 

Their definition was a great example of fudging with numbers to make you seem better at your job. Their conversion rate definition wasn’t only completely arbitrary, but it commits one of the biggest sins of email marketing. 

Here’s what I mean: 

This article’s definition of conversion rate wasn’t an actual conversion rate—it was a click through rate. They didn’t care whether someone clicking a link in an email became a customer or not—they only cared whether or not someone clicked a link. 

And so, they got such a higher ideal conversion rate because it wasn’t an actual conversion rate. 

See how metrics and numbers can lie?

The ultimate goal of any marketing activity is not to get clicks or opens or website visits or anything else that doesn’t directly relate to sales and revenue and profit. 

Moral of the story? 

Sending plain-text, story-based, authentic, and human emails (like I teach here almost daily) can ratchet up your conversion rate some 260x higher than following the typical email marketing advice that only focuses on pretty templates, pictures, and newsletter-style emails that make you seem like a corporation instead of a human. 

Some food for your noggin. 

If you need help creating and implementing a strategy that is 260x more effective than your competitors’, then, well, hit reply, and let’s chat. 

John