This is a post in an online business forum from a regular guy (Timothy) making an income from home. He is not a marketing guru and he had a difficult start, but the response to his query is relevant and will appeal to several people out there in the cold.

Hi everyone,

I'd be interested in hearing people's results from their email campaigns, in a general percentage way of course so I can get an idea of whether my expectations are set too high or not from my campaigns.

Two weeks ago I offered a sale price to our email list, and followed that up on the last day of the sale with a reminder and summary of benefits.

From around 200 emails sent out, we had 35 unique visitors to the ad campaign's landing page, and of those visitors we made 7 sales. Our JV partner also sent out a letter and generated hits to a different landing page, but with slightly lower percentage results.

I haven't had too many problems with bounced emails or unsubscribes so far (touch wood), with only a couple of requests.

I expected to get more visitors from my emails, and more purchases from my visitors - but am I setting my expectations too high?

I'd appreciate some ideas on the sorts of percentages I should be aiming for regarding email delivery, clickthrough rates, and conversions.

Cheers,

Timothy

And the answer from Nicola a top marketing specialists:

Hey Timothy,

I've got a lot of experience with email marketing, so let me be the first to congratulate you.

People would KILL for your conversion rates! ;-)

You sent 200 emails. Got 35 visitors. And got 7 sales.

That means, 1 in 6 people you emailed clicked through to your website. And 1 in 5 of your website visitors purchased.

That's excellent.

Generally speaking, click-throughs of 1 in 50 to 1 in 300-500 (no kidding) are considered good. And visitor-to-sale conversion rates of 1 in 20 to 1 in 100 are considered really good.

Why are the ranges so big? Because your conversion rates will vary dramatically depending on:

#1... How targeted is your email list? (i.e. You'll get higher conversions mailing a list of people with a narrowly defined interests, like ferrets, than people with a broad interest, like "pets.")

#2... Do you have a close relationship with your list? Do they know who you are right away? Do you have a good relationship with them?

... I would GUESS, based on your conversion rates, that you're mailing a targeted group of people, with a narrowly defined interest.

So if you want to increase your sales with your email marketing campaigns at this point, my advice would be to focus on attracting more opt-ins.

Cheers,

Nicola

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Emmanuel Sodipo is a consultant and a prolific writer with several succesful online businesses

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