Live data from Hacker News

How we boosted our marketing email open rate

catonmat.net

51–60 of 81 posts

Re: How we boosted our marketing email open rate

#51
post #10

I can't believe people are still sending email marketing. I report spam and unsubscribe on literally anything marketing related even from services I use and all my friends do this as well and have for nearly a decade.

I have that pathology. Email marketing is the only challenging part of running a mail server.

Re: How we boosted our marketing email open rate

#52
post #10

I can't believe people are still sending email marketing. I report spam and unsubscribe on literally anything marketing related even from services I use and all my friends do this as well and have for nearly a decade.

And the gall of them... to call it unsubscribe! As if I ever "subscribed" and now I need to "undo" that action. Nope. I have never in my life signed up for an E-mail list or newsletter, let alone a marketing E-mail list. There is nothing to undo, because I never did anything in the first place. Calling the link "unsubscribe" is an insidious way to blame the spam recipient for the spamming. Your E-mail list is not full of subscribers, it's full of victims.

Re: How we boosted our marketing email open rate

#53
post #29
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'I don't understand how so many companies let their marketing department get away with this.' Probably because their marketing people are highly skilled at marketing themselves.

or... because marketing works. Something folks here are rare to ever admit. HN is populated with amazing people who see thru all facades and are completely incapable of ever being a 'victim' of advertising, because we all know better!

Marketing working is exactly what makes it unethical.

Re: How we boosted our marketing email open rate

#54

Off topic rant, but in my personal experience brands destroy more value/goodwill on their email marketing campaigns than any incremental sales they generate. Why even give me the option to not sign up for your email marketing list when I check out if you’re going to spam me anyway?

That's a measurably false statement. Email marketing is done so aggressively because it's so successful. Marketing is about conversion. It's not about making everyone love you. Having a 1M customers who like your brand and don't buy anything is less valuable than 10K who spend actual money. You may be equally shocked that direct mail (ie paper mail) still have extremely high conversion rates which is you still get so many ads in your mailbox.

Re: How we boosted our marketing email open rate

#55

Off topic rant, but in my personal experience brands destroy more value/goodwill on their email marketing campaigns than any incremental sales they generate. Why even give me the option to not sign up for your email marketing list when I check out if you’re going to spam me anyway?

I think this is probably not true. For certain types of businesses email marketing is shockingly effective at generating revenue. And extremely cost effective compared to paid advertising.

Of course some people are of the opinion that all marketing is inexcusable and that if the product is good it will sell itself. Respectfully, I’d question how much experience those people have with selling products.

Re: How we boosted our marketing email open rate

#56
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share your sentiment, but at the same time what channels should be used for marketing? Exclusively social media ads? Snail Mail? When I think about it on the flipside for small business marketing it's really a tragic scenario of which ad mediums are not perceived as 'spammy'.

> I share your sentiment, but at the same time what channels should be used for marketing? None. Marketing is an objective blight on human society.

Nagging emails and 99.9% of ads suck but there needs to be avenues for new companies and products to be discovered. This site is full of marketing, but it is largely balanced out by user power (voting and ability to discuss and criticize).

Re: How we boosted our marketing email open rate

#57
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share your sentiment, but at the same time what channels should be used for marketing? Exclusively social media ads? Snail Mail? When I think about it on the flipside for small business marketing it's really a tragic scenario of which ad mediums are not perceived as 'spammy'.

> I share your sentiment, but at the same time what channels should be used for marketing? None. Marketing is an objective blight on human society.

I know this is a popular belief on HN. But I assume you mean part of marketing that is paid advertising?

Because you know, HN is a marketing site for companies in Y Combinator and Y Combinator itself.

Every landing page you have ever visited is marketing.

Every GitHub README.md is marketing.

There's not a single business in the history of mankind that have made money without marketing. Because they wouldn't be allowed to show or tell anyone they existed.

Re: How we boosted our marketing email open rate

#59
post #29
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'I don't understand how so many companies let their marketing department get away with this.' Probably because their marketing people are highly skilled at marketing themselves.

or... because marketing works. Something folks here are rare to ever admit. HN is populated with amazing people who see thru all facades and are completely incapable of ever being a 'victim' of advertising, because we all know better!

It definitely has an impact in general, that doesn't mean that every marketing campaign has a positive impact on their company. Though of course if you only ask the marketing department whether they are efficient, they are going to always say yes.

Re: How we boosted our marketing email open rate

#60
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is extremely on topic. If a company thinks "marketing email open rate" is a target, it has lost track of what marketing is. The point is to drive business to the company and that is what should be measured. If people click on your email but don't do any purchase they were already about to make, they are useless. If your spam also alienate your customers, stop what you're doing, no matter your open rate! I don't…

The first time you personally get an effective marketing email it all starts to click - I suspect that you and I have had similar experiences in that we arent really the demographic those emails are trying to reach and that we only bought a product as the most expedient way to fill a need. Thus all further communication becomes an irritant. But for me the aha moment was getting an email from a restaurant supply store…

I am not saying that no marketing campaign works, I am saying that not all of it is effective, and that companies should be at least interested in finding out whether their own marketing department is helping the business.

I don't understand how anyone takes "email click rate is high" as a definite signal that the whole effort is beneficial and worth the money.

This is similar to hiring a cloud team and getting reports that "CPU utilization is high" across the VMs. Of course using the cloud makes sense for a variety of companies, but if this is the only metric you use to know whether your cloud team is beneficial to the business, you really have no idea.

Post reply on HN