If you want to find out how your email list is performing, make sure you measure the Churn Rate. We can define “churn rate” a measure of how many subscribers leave a list in a given period of time.
It can be very useful to check the health of your mailing list and to identify actions to improve results.
Calculating the Churn Rate is very simple:
Churn Rate = (Subscribers who leave your mailing list) / Total Addresses
Please note that in Churn Rate calculation you should include not only subscribers who opt out but also hard bounces and spam complaints.
A realistic churn rate benchmark is between 20% and 30% annually, but it may vary a lot depending on your business niche. If you have a churn rate of 50-70%, there’s something in your email marketing process that is wrong and should be investigated further,
How to reduce high churn rates?
There’s a lot you can do in order to reduce churn. For example:
– Segment your list and deliver personalized offers, services
– Drive retention and loyalty programs
– Monitor how you are doing against your competitors. and if necessary, update your prices and create more competitive offers
For additional information, check out this informative iMedia Connection article written by Chris Lovejoy.