What customers do with your brand over time might interest you. Find out how marketers can acquire new customers, retain them, and engage them.

Email marketing is more profitable than its investment return by more than 50x. Email open, click, and click-to-open (CTO) rates continue to fall. This creates a gap that marketers need to close immediately.

Stages of the Customer Lifecycle

Benchmark’s report analyzed 1,387 brands across all verticals using Return Path’s Consumer Network data from Microsoft and AOL subscribers. This was from July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020.

Let’s start with the most important findings in the report. Let’s then look at the four stages of the subscriber lifecycle.

Additional data such as measuring data can be used to help you understand certain points, like

• What happens if customers stop using a program they are using?

• How does email performance with new subscribers change over time?

• How many new subscribers are retained and how many leave after twelve months?

These metrics were developed by Return Path to assist marketers in understanding how to acquire, retain, and onboard new customers within the first year. I’d love to share my results with you!

1. Buy: The First Touch

When a customer signs up for an email program from a brand, it establishes the subscriber relationship. This is called acquisition.

Marketers make sure they get high-quality email addresses during the Acquisition phase. 

There are certain metrics at the “Acquire” stage, such as:

• Subscriber Quality is a measure of whether the subscriber has used their email address frequently or not.

• Activated Subscribers: The percentage of subscribers who have read at least one email in the last 30 days from the sender’s program.

• Complaints regarding the first message: This indicates the percentage of subscribers who made a complaint about a sender’s initial message

We prefer to get good results,

• High-quality email addresses that are more likely to be read and acted on

• High activation rates for engaging content.

Which Departments Should Be Involved in Content Creation?

• Reported incidents should be kept to a minimum to reduce risk.

What is the complaint rate?

• Each email communication contains an opt-out option.

The top 10% of senders get only 53% of quality subscribers.

Marketers must optimize their email marketing by acquiring active email addresses, and clearing out invalid email lists frequently.

2. Your First Experience onboard

Subscribers’ first interaction with your email service is the Onboard Stage. This stage measures the value of the program over the first 30 days. The most important element is the subscriber response.

There are also certain metrics at the “Onboard” stage, such as:

• First touch read rate: This tells customers if they have responded to the initial email. 

• Read rate: This measure measures how well an email program retains subscribers’ interest after receiving their first message. The average read rate over the first 30 days is an indicator of this.

• Average Complaint Ratio (CTM),: This shows whether the program met subscriber expectations.

• The churn rate is the percentage that subscribers who quit email programs within 30 days. This metric helps us determine how many subscribers have stopped receiving future messages.

According to the data,

• The average first touch rate is 39%. 

• The average read speed for the first 30 days is 35%. This is well above the benchmark.

• The proportion of complaints received in the first 30 days is much lower than that received in the initial message. They still exceed the overall complaint rate of 0.17 span>

• Marketers also lose 34% in the first month of new subscribers.

The first 30 days of a subscriber’s relationship are critical to understanding engagement metrics like read rate, complaint rates, and others.

3. Get in touch with us

Engagement is the next stage of the subscriber lifecycle. Engagement builds lasting relationships with subscribers. You need to monitor how many of your emails have been opened in the first twelve months.

• The average reader rate is the total of all subscribers’ readings in the past 12 months. This metric is used to determine whether subscribers are interested in your content and can access it within the first 30 days.

• Complaint Rate: This is the average rate of complaints within the first 12 months. To identify areas where subscribers may lose interest, compare the content in the first 30 days with the content later.

• Engaged subscribers – This is the percentage that has remained active for at least 12 consecutive months. This is useful in identifying new subscribers, who continue to interact with the email program even after 12 months.

According to the data,

• Marketers can average a 32% read rate of new subscribers within the first 12 months.

• 1.1% is the average complaint rate for the first year. This could be because subscribers who complain early are taken off the mailing list, which results in fewer future complaints.

• 31.0% of new subscribers still use email programs after 12 months.

To make your emails engaging, you need to add value. 

4. Retain: A Relationship

Retention is a crucial stage in the customer’s lifetime. This stage shows whether the email program can keep new subscribers engaged and if they have stopped engaging.

How many subscribers remain at the 12-month mark, and their engagement level is two important indicators of retention success. 

• 12-month retention – The percentage of subscribers who have not unsubscribed after 12 months from a new subscriber.

• The average day of churn refers to the average time a subscriber waits until they stop using the email service. This applies to subscribers who opt out of the program in the first 12 months.

• Average days since the last message read: This is how long it takes subscribers to keep their subscriptions after twelve months. It measures the average number of days between the last message and the last received message to determine when subscribers stopped receiving mail from a particular program.

This is a 56% retention rate for new subscribers to an email program. Marketers may continue sending mail for 259 (more than eight months) after a subscriber has left the program.

8 Tips for Marketers To Do Better

1. Validate Email Addresses

Marketers must be proactive in verifying quality subscribers to their lists. 

• Good IP address
• good email service
• Clean template code
• Verified domain
• Clear unsubscribe link
• Physical mailing address

What is email verification?

2. Get consent

Optimize opt-in processes for new subscribers to your email programs. It is important that you clearly explain the purpose of the opt-in without using pre-checked boxes or auto-fill fields. Increase activation and reduce complaints.

What is opt-out? What do single and double opt-in mean?

3. Set Expectations

You should let your subscribers know what to expect from you when you send them emails. 

4. Monitor Subscriber Engagement

Tracking the interaction of your subscribers with your messages is crucial. Listening is the only way you can provide genuine value.

5. Segment Your List

This will enable you to learn more about your subscribers and create segments based on their interests and behavior 

6. Offer Different Campaign Types

Email marketing is the best way to increase your ROI. You can also keep your subscribers interested with feedback surveys.

What is the best way to calculate your email marketing ROI

7. Send win-back emails

Marketers need to re-engage customers using win-back campaigns. According to this report, the average read rate for these campaigns is 20%. This means that 1 in 5 inactive subscribers are now engaging with email programs from the brand.

8. Watch Data about the Life-cycle

Life-cycle data provides insights that are not campaign-based. To get a report that compares to the average and tracks how subscribers interact with your program’s services, contact a consulting team.

These metrics will help you improve the success of your email campaigns. These strategic strategies can help increase your return on your investment and convert more people.

Leave a comment about your experience below.

Thank you for your time.