March 2006
From the Editor: What do you track?

A couple of months ago, we ran a story in our weekly e-newsletter about a consumer sex show in Minneapolis. The headline: Sex show will go on despite controversy. The story was about the Sex and So Much More Show, a consumer event showcasing products and seminars related to sex, romance and self improvement, that launched at the Minneapolis Convention Center despite protests from locals who questioned whether it's appropriate to hold such a show in a publicly funded facility. According to our click-through rates, it was one of the most popular stories we’ve ever published — by far.

That’s one of the great things about e-mail — you can track responses and hone your message based on the feedback. But e-mail marketing ain’t what it used to be, according to a recent report by eROI, an e-mail marketing service provider that produces quarterly analysis. eRoi reported that click-through rates dropped 21 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005 compared with the prior quarter. Year-over-year, click-through rates were down 3.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005, compared with the same period in 2004.

Even worse news: read rates were at 17.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005, a 29 percent drop compared with the third quarter. Year-over-over, read rates dropped 22 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005, compared with the same period in 2004. At the same time, e-mail volume rose 50 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the prior quarter, which contributes to in-box clutter, according to eROI.

Show organizers clearly rely heavily on e-mail marketing. E-mail was the most used marketing vehicle in 2005, according to the just-released AttendTrend study published by Frost Miller Group and Jacobs Jenner & Kent (watch for our next issue, which will feature exclusive coverage on this annual survey). But one-quarter of show organizers say they don’t use e-mail metrics or tracking tools to measure response, according to AttendTrend.

Which begs the question: If you don’t track responses, how will you know you need to tweak the content to increase the effectiveness? It’s much more difficult and expensive to track response to print, direct mail, public relations, radio/TV, etc. Especially when you can generally pull e-mail reports immediately, and they’re free.

Tracking tools can tell you how effective your subject line is. They can provide an indication ofyour show’s value to recipients, based on key demographics. Tracking click-throughs can tell you how enticing your copy is. You can see how many people visit your registration page but then don’t register

The moral of the story: Sex sells — no matter what industry you’re in, but you won’t know if you don’t track it.