Now that you're sending value-driven, targeted emails, let's talk about how you can measure results. After all, you need to know whether or not your emails are hitting home and getting people to your site or in your location. Here are several key email marketing metrics every business owner needs to understand.

Deliverability

It's imperative that your emails are actually making it to your intended recipients' inboxes and not the Spam folder. It's also essential that the list you have is up to date. While every email service provider has its own protocol for what it decides is Spam (and that can be completely frustrating as a marketer), you can take steps to guarantee your emails get where you want them to go:

• Get Your Subscribers to Approve You: In your first email, ask your subscribers to put your email address on their approved list. Some emails, like Google, sort mail as Promotional, and if you ask your subscribers to move you to their Inbox, they'll be more likely to see your emails.
• Don't Use Trigger Words: Some words are more likely to get your email sent to Spam. 100% Free, Act Now, Billion, Cash Bonus and Order Now are just a few that Spam filters may recognize. View a complete list of words to avoid here.

Bounce Rate

People delete their email accounts, and if you're trying to send to a bad address, it'll affect your numbers. Review those that bounced and removed them from your list.

Open Rate

Open rate refers to the percent of total people who received your email that actually open it. What's a good open rate, you ask? It depends on your industry. For restaurants, 26% is a solid open rate.

A higher open rate means that your emails are effective at reaching your audience. A low one means that you're doing something wrong, or at least could stand to make some changes to your emails. Make sure that your subject line is appealing, using the preceding tips, and that your From address clearly identifies your brand as the sender.

Click Through Rate

The click through rate is the percent of people who click links in your email to your site. Ideally you'd like everyone to click from your email to your website, but again, your rate will depend on your industry and other factors. Restaurants see about 1.58% of recipients clicking through.

The key to a higher number of clicks is, again, providing value and giving recipients a reason to click. Make your offers specific: don't just say they can save if they click; tell them how much they can save.

Number of In-Store Visits

Most email marketing service providers can't give this type of detail to you, but Belly can. Because each promotion is tied to an in-store offer, it's easy to see how many customers actually took advantage of your offer. This makes it easy to decide what kinds of offers you want to craft in the future, since you now know what your audience responds to.

Number of Repeat Visits

With repeat visit data, too, Belly is the only email solution that closes the loop between the emails you're sending out and actual in-store results. You want customers to come back, and now you can track it with Belly. We help you learn which campaigns successfully bring your customers back month after month!

Learn more about Belly's Campaigns tool for email marketing!

Ready to see how Belly can work for your business? Request a demo.