Email Analytics [Research]: 8 Email Marketing Metrics You Should Track

Part of my marketing job is to send emails and track their progress, so I know a lot about the most crucial elements of optimizing an email, common marketing email mistakes, and what inspirational email marketing looks like.

But at the end of the day, it doesn‘t matter how optimized my emails are if I can’t properly track my email analytics or if I'm unsure what metrics need my attention.

Fortunately, my experience sending email marketing materials, such as newsletters, has given me a wealth of knowledge I'm happy to pass on to other marketers and business owners.

Let's explore eight crucial metrics and KPIs you should be tracking to assess the effectiveness of your email efforts.

1. Clickthrough Rate

Clickthrough rate (CTR) is likely the first answer you'll get when you ask an email marketer what metrics they track.

In fact, I surveyed 190 marketers and found that the majority (33%) rank clickthrough rate among the top two metrics they track when sending and reporting marketing emails.

Your clickthrough rate is the percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links in a given email.

The formula I and other marketers use to calculate this metric is dividing total or unique clicks by the number of delivered emails. I then multiply that answer by 100.

Here's how the formula looks:

(Total clicks OR unique clicks ÷ Number of delivered emails) * 100

For example, let's say I sent out 10,000 delivered emails that amassed a total of 500 clicks. I would divide the 500 total clicks by the 10,000 delivered emails and multiply the answer by 100, yielding a 5% clickthrough rate.

The math would look like this:

500 total clicks ÷ 10,000 delivered emails * 100 = 5% clickthrough rate

Pro Tip: Using total or unique clicks in the calculation above works, as long as you consistently use the same approach.

I like to call CTR the “day-to-day” email marketing metric because it lets you quickly calculate performance for every email you send. From there, you can track how your CTR changes over time.

CTR is also frequently used for determining the results of A/B tests, as these tests are often designed to find new ways to get more clicks in your emails.

How valuable is a clickthrough rate?

In my experience, CTR is a crucial metric for all email marketers to track, as it gives direct insight into how many people on an email list are engaging with the content and interested in learning more about a brand or offer.

Read this blog post to know what a “good” clickthrough rate is, according to industry benchmarks. HubSpot customers can click here to learn how to set up click tracking in your emails using HubSpot quickly.

2. Open Rate

This is the percentage of email recipients who open a given email.

31% of marketers in our survey listed open rate among the top two metrics they track when sending and reporting marketing emails, placing it right behind clickthrough rate.

Most email marketers are still bent over backward, trying to optimize their subject lines for higher open rates.

While this can have a positive impact — and more opens are a great thing — experience has taught me that marketers should be focused on optimizing their clickthrough rates instead.

The fact is that the open rate is a very misleading metric for a few reasons. Most importantly, an email is only counted as “opened” if the recipient also receives the images embedded in that message.

And many of your email users likely have image-blocking enabled on their email clients.

This means that even if they open the email, they won’t be included in your open rate, making it an inaccurate and unreliable metric for marketers, as it underreports your actual numbers.

It's also important to note that 22% of marketing professionals in our survey say Apple's latest Email Privacy Protection feature impacts the reporting accuracy of open rates.

Fortunately, some marketers are finding workaround by creating opportunities for users to voluntarily give information via gates content such as webinar signups and virtual events.

How valuable is your email open rate?

You can get some value out of the open rate as a metric if you use it as a comparative metric.

For instance, comparing the open rates of this week‘s email sent to last week’s (both to the same lists) might give you some insight since the variables are somewhat controlled.

3. Conversion Rate

After an email recipient has clicked through on your email, the next goal is typically to get them to convert on your offer, in other words, to take the action your email has asked them to take.

So, if you‘re sending an email to offer your audience the chance to download a free ebook, you’d consider anyone who actually downloads that ebook to be a conversion.

Conversion rate is the percentage of email recipients who click on a link within an email and completes a desired action, such as filling out a lead generation form or purchasing a product.

To calculate the conversion rate, I divide the number of people who completed the desired action by the number of emails delivered and multiply the answer by 100. The formula looks like this:

(Number of people who completed the desired action ÷ Number of total emails delivered) * 100

Let‘s say I have 10,0000 total emails delivered, and 400 of the emails’ recipients completed the desired action. To get the conversion rate, I'd divide 400 by 10,000, which equals 0.04. Multiple that by 100, and the conversion rate is 4%.

I've found that conversion rate is one of the most important metrics for determining how my emails achieve my goals.

This is because the definition of a conversion is directly tied to the call-to-action in an email, and my call-to-action should be directly connected to the overall goal of my email marketing.

Pro Tip: To measure the conversion rate of your emails, you'll need to integrate your email platform and web analytics.

You can do this by creating unique tracking URLs for your email links that identify the source of the click as coming from a specific email campaign.

How valuable is your conversion rate?

If your goal is to generate leads, conversion rates are significant as they show you how successful your newsletters are at actually generating prospects and leads.

4. Bounce Rate

There are two variations of this metric to track: “hard” and “soft.” Before we get into that, however, let's discuss what a bounce rate is.

Bounce rate is the percentage of total emails sent that could not be successfully delivered to the recipient's inbox. To calculate it, divide the number of bounced emails by the number of emails sent, and multiply by the answer by 100:

(Number of bounced emails ÷ Total number of emails sent) * 100

Example: 75 bounced emails ÷ 10,000 total emails sent * 100 = 0.75% bounce rate

There are two kinds of bounces to track: “hard” and “soft.”

I've found soft bounces result from a temporary problem with a valid email address, such as a full inbox or a problem with the recipient’s server.

The recipient’s server may hold these emails for delivery once the problem clears up, or you may try re-sending your email message to soft bounces.

Hard bounces result from an invalid, closed, or non-existent email address, and these emails will never be successfully delivered.

You should immediately remove complex bounce addresses from your email list because internet service providers (ISPs) use bounce rates to determine an email sender’s reputation.

How valuable is a bounce rate?

While a bounce rate doesn‘t directly link to your goals, you should still look at it to make sure there are no deep issues with your emails. I’ve learned the hard way that having too many hard bounces can make your company look like a spammer in the eyes of an ISP.

Read this blog post to learn more about hard and soft bounces.

5. List Growth Rate

Aside from the call-to-action metrics (CTR, conversion rates), I also suggest keeping tabs on list growth and loss. Of course, you should aim to grow your list to extend your reach, expand your audience, and position yourself as an industry thought leader.

Your list growth rate is the rate at which your email list grows. Here's the formula to calculate it:

([(Number of new subscribers) minus (Number of unsubscribes + email/spam complaints)] ÷ Total number of email addresses on your list]) * 100

Example: (500 new subscribers - 100 unsubscribes and email/spam complaints) ÷ 10,000 email addresses on the list * 100 = 4% list growth rate

How valuable is your list growth rate?

Believe it or not, there's a natural decay of your email marketing list, and it expires by about 22.71% every year — which means that it's more important than ever to pay attention to growing your subscriber list and keeping it at a healthy size.

6. Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate

I used to think the rate at which my email recipients forward or share my emails with others was insignificant, but I‘ve since learned it’s arguably one of the most important metrics marketers should track.

Why? Because this is how you generate new contacts. The folks on your email list are already in your database. So, while conversion is still a primary focus, this doesn't help you attract new leads.

The percentage of email recipients who clicked on a “share this” button to post email content to a social network and/or clicked on a “forward to a friend” button.

This formula for your email sharing/forwarding rate is:

(Number of clicks on a share and/or forward button ÷ Number of total delivered emails) * 100

For example: 100 clicks on a share/forward button ÷ 10,000 total delivered emails * 100 = 1% email sharing/forwarding rate

Encourage your readers to pass along your email to a friend or colleague if they found the content helpful, and start tracking how many new people you can add to your database this way. Read this blog post for tips on getting people to forward your emails.

Why Email Sharing and Forwarding Rates Are Valuable

Keep a careful eye on your sharing rates to discover which types of articles and offers tend to get shared the most, and use that insight when you plan email campaigns in the future.

7. Overall ROI

This metric is the overall return on investment for your email campaigns. In other words, total revenue is divided by real spend.

Below is the most basic formula to calculate ROI — but there are several ways to calculate the ROI of your email campaigns:

[($ in additional sales made minus $ invested in the campaign) ÷ $ invested in the campaign] * 100

Example: ($1,000 in additional sales - $100 invested in the campaign / $100 supported in the campaign) * 100 = a 900% return on investment for the campaign

Depending on your type of business, you might prefer a different one.

Pro Tip: As with every marketing channel, you should be able to determine the overall ROI of your email marketing. If you still need to, set up an SLA system whereby you assign different values to various types of leads based on their likelihood to generate revenue for your company.

How valuable is ROI?

How many of these types of leads did you generate via email marketing? How does this translate to potential revenue? Actual revenue?

These metrics will help you show your boss and sales team how valuable email marketing is as a channel that drives accurate, tangible results.

8. Unsubscribe Rate

The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of email recipients unsubscribe from your send list after opening a given email.

As with the open rate, the unsubscribe rate isn’t a reliable picture of the health of your email list. Many subscribers tired of receiving your brand's email messages won’t bother to go through the formal unsubscribe process.

They’ll stop opening, reading, and clicking on your email messages.

That‘s why I’ve found measuring subscriber engagement by clickthrough and conversion rates is much more effective. From there, you can keep an eye out for unengaged subscribers so you can consider removing them at some point, as we went over earlier.

How valuable is an unsubscribe rate?

Although your unsubscribe rate doesn't directly relate to your goals, checking it monthly helps calculate your overall list growth rate. So, do keep an eye on it every once in a while.

How to Know Which Email Metrics to Track, Based on Your Goals

The goal of your email marketing may differ from the goals of another company like yours and may even vary within your own company over time.

But again, you must determine precisely what you're looking to achieve with your email marketing before you begin (or continue) to send and measure your emails.

Here's how you can align your specific goal with critical metrics.

Subscriber List Growth Rate

If you focus on growing the top of your funnel -- attracting more visitors to your site, signing up more blog subscribers, and getting more people to use your free tools, your goal is to grow your subscriber list.

Your emails will likely contain calls to action such as “Subscribe to Our Blog” or “Join Our Weekly Email List.” Of course, the most important metric you should be tracking for this goal is the growth rate of your subscriber list.

Unengaged Subscribers

Just as you want to track and grow your subscribers, it's also essential to keep an eye on your unengaged subscribers — and consider removing them from your list altogether. Why?

Because sending emails to people who aren't engaged with your emails (called “graymail”) can hurt the deliverability of your email overall.

Email clients might get tipped off by low engagement rates and deliver emails from known graymail senders straight to recipients' “junk” folders, meaning your emails will technically get sent and delivered but won't necessarily be seen.

Here at HubSpot, we deliberately unsubscribed 250,000 people from HubSpot's Marketing Blog, including those who had opted in to receive emails about new content we published on the blog.

This subscriber purge brought our total subscriber count from 550,000 down to 300,000. Read this blog post to learn why and how we purged our subscriber list and why you might consider doing the same.

Number of New (or Total) Leads Generated

Instead of focusing on subscribers, you'd like to work on growing lead generation.

If this is the case, you should be sending emails that offer lead generation content — in other words, content that requires the viewer to fill out a lead capture form to access it.

If the goal of your email marketing is lead gen, you should be tracking how many leads you capture every day and every month. Depending on your priorities, you can focus on all leads generated or only new ones added to your database.

Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate

Finally, let's say you want to focus more on the middle/bottom of your marketing funnel and convert your existing leads into customers.

If this is your goal, your emails will likely provide content more closely related to your business and your product or service.

Your calls-to-action may include “Get a demo,” “Watch a Video of Our Product in Action,” or “Start a Free Trial.” If this is your goal, you should track your lead-to-customer conversion rate changes.

As obvious as this all seems, you‘d be surprised how many email marketers determine their goals and then don’t bother to track their progress against them.

Ensure you can follow how closely you‘re trending toward your goal at any point during the month and that you’re looking carefully at any changes in these metrics month over month.

And if you need assistance tracking the performance of your marketing emails, HubSpot‘s Email Marketing Tools are available to help you create, personalize, and optimize your email campaigns.

Even better, the tools also include email analytics to observe your emails’ effectiveness.

To help you with your email marketing goals, you can also leverage HubSpot's AI tools like our Email Writer that can help you generate copy that suits your needs.

Navigating Email Marketing Metrics

The bottom line? Be smart about which metrics you're tracking, and ensure you can effectively measure your individual email performance, the health of your email list, and your progress toward your overarching goals.

As long as you can determine each of those, you're on the right track for more effective email marketing.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in March 2014 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/metrics-email-marketers-should-be-tracking

Part of my marketing job is to send emails and track their progress, so I know a lot about the most crucial elements of optimizing an email, common marketing email mistakes, and what inspirational email marketing looks like.

But at the end of the day, it doesn‘t matter how optimized my emails are if I can’t properly track my email analytics or if I'm unsure what metrics need my attention.

Fortunately, my experience sending email marketing materials, such as newsletters, has given me a wealth of knowledge I'm happy to pass on to other marketers and business owners.

Let's explore eight crucial metrics and KPIs you should be tracking to assess the effectiveness of your email efforts.

1. Clickthrough Rate

Clickthrough rate (CTR) is likely the first answer you'll get when you ask an email marketer what metrics they track.

In fact, I surveyed 190 marketers and found that the majority (33%) rank clickthrough rate among the top two metrics they track when sending and reporting marketing emails.

Your clickthrough rate is the percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links in a given email.

The formula I and other marketers use to calculate this metric is dividing total or unique clicks by the number of delivered emails. I then multiply that answer by 100.

Here's how the formula looks:

(Total clicks OR unique clicks ÷ Number of delivered emails) * 100

For example, let's say I sent out 10,000 delivered emails that amassed a total of 500 clicks. I would divide the 500 total clicks by the 10,000 delivered emails and multiply the answer by 100, yielding a 5% clickthrough rate.

The math would look like this:

500 total clicks ÷ 10,000 delivered emails * 100 = 5% clickthrough rate

Pro Tip: Using total or unique clicks in the calculation above works, as long as you consistently use the same approach.

I like to call CTR the “day-to-day” email marketing metric because it lets you quickly calculate performance for every email you send. From there, you can track how your CTR changes over time.

CTR is also frequently used for determining the results of A/B tests, as these tests are often designed to find new ways to get more clicks in your emails.

How valuable is a clickthrough rate?

In my experience, CTR is a crucial metric for all email marketers to track, as it gives direct insight into how many people on an email list are engaging with the content and interested in learning more about a brand or offer.

Read this blog post to know what a “good” clickthrough rate is, according to industry benchmarks. HubSpot customers can click here to learn how to set up click tracking in your emails using HubSpot quickly.

2. Open Rate

This is the percentage of email recipients who open a given email.

31% of marketers in our survey listed open rate among the top two metrics they track when sending and reporting marketing emails, placing it right behind clickthrough rate.

Most email marketers are still bent over backward, trying to optimize their subject lines for higher open rates.

While this can have a positive impact — and more opens are a great thing — experience has taught me that marketers should be focused on optimizing their clickthrough rates instead.

The fact is that the open rate is a very misleading metric for a few reasons. Most importantly, an email is only counted as “opened” if the recipient also receives the images embedded in that message.

And many of your email users likely have image-blocking enabled on their email clients.

This means that even if they open the email, they won’t be included in your open rate, making it an inaccurate and unreliable metric for marketers, as it underreports your actual numbers.

It's also important to note that 22% of marketing professionals in our survey say Apple's latest Email Privacy Protection feature impacts the reporting accuracy of open rates.

Fortunately, some marketers are finding workaround by creating opportunities for users to voluntarily give information via gates content such as webinar signups and virtual events.

How valuable is your email open rate?

You can get some value out of the open rate as a metric if you use it as a comparative metric.

For instance, comparing the open rates of this week‘s email sent to last week’s (both to the same lists) might give you some insight since the variables are somewhat controlled.

3. Conversion Rate

After an email recipient has clicked through on your email, the next goal is typically to get them to convert on your offer, in other words, to take the action your email has asked them to take.

So, if you‘re sending an email to offer your audience the chance to download a free ebook, you’d consider anyone who actually downloads that ebook to be a conversion.

Conversion rate is the percentage of email recipients who click on a link within an email and completes a desired action, such as filling out a lead generation form or purchasing a product.

To calculate the conversion rate, I divide the number of people who completed the desired action by the number of emails delivered and multiply the answer by 100. The formula looks like this:

(Number of people who completed the desired action ÷ Number of total emails delivered) * 100

Let‘s say I have 10,0000 total emails delivered, and 400 of the emails’ recipients completed the desired action. To get the conversion rate, I'd divide 400 by 10,000, which equals 0.04. Multiple that by 100, and the conversion rate is 4%.

I've found that conversion rate is one of the most important metrics for determining how my emails achieve my goals.

This is because the definition of a conversion is directly tied to the call-to-action in an email, and my call-to-action should be directly connected to the overall goal of my email marketing.

Pro Tip: To measure the conversion rate of your emails, you'll need to integrate your email platform and web analytics.

You can do this by creating unique tracking URLs for your email links that identify the source of the click as coming from a specific email campaign.

How valuable is your conversion rate?

If your goal is to generate leads, conversion rates are significant as they show you how successful your newsletters are at actually generating prospects and leads.

4. Bounce Rate

There are two variations of this metric to track: “hard” and “soft.” Before we get into that, however, let's discuss what a bounce rate is.

Bounce rate is the percentage of total emails sent that could not be successfully delivered to the recipient's inbox. To calculate it, divide the number of bounced emails by the number of emails sent, and multiply by the answer by 100:

(Number of bounced emails ÷ Total number of emails sent) * 100

Example: 75 bounced emails ÷ 10,000 total emails sent * 100 = 0.75% bounce rate

There are two kinds of bounces to track: “hard” and “soft.”

I've found soft bounces result from a temporary problem with a valid email address, such as a full inbox or a problem with the recipient’s server.

The recipient’s server may hold these emails for delivery once the problem clears up, or you may try re-sending your email message to soft bounces.

Hard bounces result from an invalid, closed, or non-existent email address, and these emails will never be successfully delivered.

You should immediately remove complex bounce addresses from your email list because internet service providers (ISPs) use bounce rates to determine an email sender’s reputation.

How valuable is a bounce rate?

While a bounce rate doesn‘t directly link to your goals, you should still look at it to make sure there are no deep issues with your emails. I’ve learned the hard way that having too many hard bounces can make your company look like a spammer in the eyes of an ISP.

Read this blog post to learn more about hard and soft bounces.

5. List Growth Rate

Aside from the call-to-action metrics (CTR, conversion rates), I also suggest keeping tabs on list growth and loss. Of course, you should aim to grow your list to extend your reach, expand your audience, and position yourself as an industry thought leader.

Your list growth rate is the rate at which your email list grows. Here's the formula to calculate it:

([(Number of new subscribers) minus (Number of unsubscribes + email/spam complaints)] ÷ Total number of email addresses on your list]) * 100

Example: (500 new subscribers - 100 unsubscribes and email/spam complaints) ÷ 10,000 email addresses on the list * 100 = 4% list growth rate

How valuable is your list growth rate?

Believe it or not, there's a natural decay of your email marketing list, and it expires by about 22.71% every year — which means that it's more important than ever to pay attention to growing your subscriber list and keeping it at a healthy size.

6. Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate

I used to think the rate at which my email recipients forward or share my emails with others was insignificant, but I‘ve since learned it’s arguably one of the most important metrics marketers should track.

Why? Because this is how you generate new contacts. The folks on your email list are already in your database. So, while conversion is still a primary focus, this doesn't help you attract new leads.

The percentage of email recipients who clicked on a “share this” button to post email content to a social network and/or clicked on a “forward to a friend” button.

This formula for your email sharing/forwarding rate is:

(Number of clicks on a share and/or forward button ÷ Number of total delivered emails) * 100

For example: 100 clicks on a share/forward button ÷ 10,000 total delivered emails * 100 = 1% email sharing/forwarding rate

Encourage your readers to pass along your email to a friend or colleague if they found the content helpful, and start tracking how many new people you can add to your database this way. Read this blog post for tips on getting people to forward your emails.

Why Email Sharing and Forwarding Rates Are Valuable

Keep a careful eye on your sharing rates to discover which types of articles and offers tend to get shared the most, and use that insight when you plan email campaigns in the future.

7. Overall ROI

This metric is the overall return on investment for your email campaigns. In other words, total revenue is divided by real spend.

Below is the most basic formula to calculate ROI — but there are several ways to calculate the ROI of your email campaigns:

[($ in additional sales made minus $ invested in the campaign) ÷ $ invested in the campaign] * 100

Example: ($1,000 in additional sales - $100 invested in the campaign / $100 supported in the campaign) * 100 = a 900% return on investment for the campaign

Depending on your type of business, you might prefer a different one.

Pro Tip: As with every marketing channel, you should be able to determine the overall ROI of your email marketing. If you still need to, set up an SLA system whereby you assign different values to various types of leads based on their likelihood to generate revenue for your company.

How valuable is ROI?

How many of these types of leads did you generate via email marketing? How does this translate to potential revenue? Actual revenue?

These metrics will help you show your boss and sales team how valuable email marketing is as a channel that drives accurate, tangible results.

8. Unsubscribe Rate

The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of email recipients unsubscribe from your send list after opening a given email.

As with the open rate, the unsubscribe rate isn’t a reliable picture of the health of your email list. Many subscribers tired of receiving your brand's email messages won’t bother to go through the formal unsubscribe process.

They’ll stop opening, reading, and clicking on your email messages.

That‘s why I’ve found measuring subscriber engagement by clickthrough and conversion rates is much more effective. From there, you can keep an eye out for unengaged subscribers so you can consider removing them at some point, as we went over earlier.

How valuable is an unsubscribe rate?

Although your unsubscribe rate doesn't directly relate to your goals, checking it monthly helps calculate your overall list growth rate. So, do keep an eye on it every once in a while.

How to Know Which Email Metrics to Track, Based on Your Goals

The goal of your email marketing may differ from the goals of another company like yours and may even vary within your own company over time.

But again, you must determine precisely what you're looking to achieve with your email marketing before you begin (or continue) to send and measure your emails.

Here's how you can align your specific goal with critical metrics.

Subscriber List Growth Rate

If you focus on growing the top of your funnel -- attracting more visitors to your site, signing up more blog subscribers, and getting more people to use your free tools, your goal is to grow your subscriber list.

Your emails will likely contain calls to action such as “Subscribe to Our Blog” or “Join Our Weekly Email List.” Of course, the most important metric you should be tracking for this goal is the growth rate of your subscriber list.

Unengaged Subscribers

Just as you want to track and grow your subscribers, it's also essential to keep an eye on your unengaged subscribers — and consider removing them from your list altogether. Why?

Because sending emails to people who aren't engaged with your emails (called “graymail”) can hurt the deliverability of your email overall.

Email clients might get tipped off by low engagement rates and deliver emails from known graymail senders straight to recipients' “junk” folders, meaning your emails will technically get sent and delivered but won't necessarily be seen.

Here at HubSpot, we deliberately unsubscribed 250,000 people from HubSpot's Marketing Blog, including those who had opted in to receive emails about new content we published on the blog.

This subscriber purge brought our total subscriber count from 550,000 down to 300,000. Read this blog post to learn why and how we purged our subscriber list and why you might consider doing the same.

Number of New (or Total) Leads Generated

Instead of focusing on subscribers, you'd like to work on growing lead generation.

If this is the case, you should be sending emails that offer lead generation content — in other words, content that requires the viewer to fill out a lead capture form to access it.

If the goal of your email marketing is lead gen, you should be tracking how many leads you capture every day and every month. Depending on your priorities, you can focus on all leads generated or only new ones added to your database.

Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate

Finally, let's say you want to focus more on the middle/bottom of your marketing funnel and convert your existing leads into customers.

If this is your goal, your emails will likely provide content more closely related to your business and your product or service.

Your calls-to-action may include “Get a demo,” “Watch a Video of Our Product in Action,” or “Start a Free Trial.” If this is your goal, you should track your lead-to-customer conversion rate changes.

As obvious as this all seems, you‘d be surprised how many email marketers determine their goals and then don’t bother to track their progress against them.

Ensure you can follow how closely you‘re trending toward your goal at any point during the month and that you’re looking carefully at any changes in these metrics month over month.

And if you need assistance tracking the performance of your marketing emails, HubSpot‘s Email Marketing Tools are available to help you create, personalize, and optimize your email campaigns.

Even better, the tools also include email analytics to observe your emails’ effectiveness.

To help you with your email marketing goals, you can also leverage HubSpot's AI tools like our Email Writer that can help you generate copy that suits your needs.

Navigating Email Marketing Metrics

The bottom line? Be smart about which metrics you're tracking, and ensure you can effectively measure your individual email performance, the health of your email list, and your progress toward your overarching goals.

As long as you can determine each of those, you're on the right track for more effective email marketing.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in March 2014 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

via Perfecte news Non connection

14 Ecommerce Trends to Expect in 2024

As an Etsy shop owner, I like to think my products alone are enough for customers to click "buy." Yet, it could be my two-day shipping guarantee. Or my product videos on TikTok. Or the sustainable packaging.

My point is this: offering a great product is essential, but it's not enough to move inventory. You need to build a positive shopping experience around your product. A big part of this is embracing the latest ecommerce trends.

In 2024, there's a whole lineup of new trends that could kickstart major growth for your ecommerce company — and we’ve chosen the top 14 trends we think will change how people buy and sell online.

Let's dive in.

1. Short-Form Video

Short-form video has taken the social media world by storm, and platforms like TikTok have become legitimate vehicles to promote your businesses

I recently took a stab at using TikTok to promote my Etsy store, and was surprisingly happy with the results. While my business account has a modest 62 followers, I was able to generate over a hundred likes on my first video.

If you decide to veer into TikTok territory, here's a word from the wise: don't be overtly promotional. TikTok users are pretty good at sniffing out a promotional video from an organic one.

Instead, adapt your content for the platform. This means jumping on trending music, effects, and video concepts, like in the example below:

@saraivaldezz cutest fall sweatshirt 🍁 #fall #fyp #foryou #snoopy #charliebrown #4yp ♬ Great Pumpkin Waltz - Vince Guaraldi Trio

2. Direct Messages (DMs) for Customer Service

Most of my customers message me directly on Etsy. However, I've noticed an increasing number are reaching out via Instagram. This mirrors a larger trend in the ecommerce world.

19% of consumers have reached out to customer service via DMs in the past 3 months, up 45% from 2022.

What does this mean for ecommerce store owners? For one, you'll need a more diverse customer service strategy, one that spans multiple platforms. Ignoring or delaying responses on channels like Instagram or Twitter could result in lost sales or declining customer satisfaction.

If you run a larger operation, consider investing in customer relationship management (CRM) software that can manage multi-channel interactions. On top of that, make sure your customer service teams are trained to handle messages professionally on social media.

3. Social Commerce

Would you ever buy a product on Instagram or TikTok? Nearly half (47%) of social media users would.

What's more, 42% trust social media platforms with their credit card information.

Social media is no longer just a tool for promotion — it's a marketplace where you can sell products directly to consumers. Take Instagram Shops, for example. You can open a storefront, add products, and run ads to boost awareness, directly from the Instagram app.

(Image Source)

Social media is ushering in a new era for digital commerce. Those that leverage social media as a direct sales channel can access an enormous— and still growing— customer base.

4. Sustainable Shopping

Now, more than ever, consumers want to back companies that align with their core values. Case in point: 46% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a company that actively donates to charity.

In my ecommerce store, all materials are ethically sourced, which is a point I  mention in each of my product listings. This is a great way to let potential customers know about the ethical considerations that are central to my business.

Corporate responsibility isn't just lip service; it's actually influencing consumers' purchasing decisions — and I predict more ecommerce stores will start prioritizing sustainable sourcing, packaging, and manufacturing in 2024.

(Image Source)

5. Same-Day or Next-Day Delivery

Amazon has opened nearly 45 shipping sites in the last four years, and is expected to grow this to 150 in the next several years.

When you consider 40% of U.S. consumers expect their online delivery to take two to three days to arrive, this play makes sense.

But the need for (delivery) speed isn't just for big retail giants.

Just last week, I received a notification from Etsy that sellers could update their processing time to include weekends. Meaning, if you fulfill orders on Sundays, your customers will see faster delivery times. I've personally discovered that the quicker my processing times on Etsy, the more customers want to buy.

Consumers don't just want fast delivery times, they expect it. In some cases, they even fork over more money for same-day or next-day delivery. If you don’t give consumers these options, they may turn to competitors who do.

6. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

When I moved into my apartment last year, I was on the hunt for the perfect couch. Nothing too bulky, or ornate, or mismatched with my existing decor.

The problem? As I was perusing Ikea's website, it was hard to envision what each couch would look like in my space from the product photos alone.

Fortunately, Ikea offers an AR app that lets you place 3D products in your home. The products are true-to-scale, so you can see whether it will fit and how it’ll look in your room.

Augmented reality and virtual reality will continue to keep the pace in 2024. Eventually, it will become standard for companies to offer AR and VR options.

Ultimately, these added benefits are worth the initial investment in new technology. As ecommerce grows, consumers are going to buy from companies that allow them the option of visually testing out products before purchase.

7. Livestream Shopping

Ever wanted to sell your wares on QCV or HSN? Now you can do something similar on social media.

In 2019, Amazon launched its livestream shopping platform, Amazon Live. Two years later, TikTok began testing a live shopping function in the United States. YouTube and Shopify closely followed suit, expanding their live shopping partnership.

All of these investments signal a more immersive and interactive future for e-commerce, one that goes beyond scrolling through static images and reading product descriptions.

(Image Source)

8. Automation and Chatbots for Online Ordering

With 1.3 billion people on Facebook Messenger, it makes sense to take advantage of chatbots for marketing, customer service, and sales.

With ecommerce, you can take it a step further.

Domino’s uses its Messenger bot, Dom, for full-menu ordering. The implications of this are huge: when fast and simple are priorities for consumers, Domino’s will beat out all the competition.

Plus, chatbot ordering is an opportunity for Domino’s to cater to its audience in a new way, proving itself to be a helpful and forward-thinking company.

If it makes sense for your business, I’d suggest creating a chatbot like Dom while it’s still an open field. In a few years, this could become a mainstream way of ordering, and lose some of its current novelty power.

9. Mobile First, Desktop Second

When shopping online, roughly 75% of consumers prefer using their mobile devices, compared to 15% that prefer desktop and 6% that prefer tablet.

As mobile purchasing continues to grow, it’s important to create an ecommerce site that’s optimized for mobile.

Fingerprint and facial recognition technology, as well as one-click payments, will simplify mobile payments and further encourage consumers to switch from desktop to mobile. Mobile will soon become the preferred payment method for ecommerce transactions.

Starbucks created a Mobile Order and Pay app in 2015. By 2021, 26% of all Starbucks orders were paid via mobile. Starbucks said their Mobile Order and Pay app is so popular, it creates congestion in stores and extra-long wait lines, which they’re attempting to solve by hiring more baristas.

If mobile ordering leads to a larger pool of in-store consumers, I’m thinking it’s a worthwhile investment.

10. Image Search

Picture this: you’re in a store and see a beautiful couch but don’t feel like paying full price, so you take a picture of it and use eBay’s image search to find similar products for a better deal.

As ecommerce transitions to mobile, companies will begin offering options to visually search for products by using personal photos, or photos found online.

Since image search offers opportunities to find similar products at a cheaper price online, it could eventually drive consumers to shop online even if they started in a physical store.

A few ecommerce businesses have already successfully implemented image search functions into their online platforms. Pinterest, for example, has its own image search function. On Pinterest, you can zoom in on an object in a Pin image and find similar objects.

11. Voice Search

As Amazon Echo, Google Home, and other voice-activated devices grow in popularity, voice search will become the preferred method of search. Around 40% of U.S. internet users use a voice assistant at least monthly.

It’s critical to optimize your business for voice search in 2024, or you could lose the vast majority of consumers who choose to shop through voice-activated devices.

Walmart made it possible for consumers to order any of their items by voice on the Google Express, and in the future, they’re going to allow consumers to place in-store pickup orders via Google Home. Target, Costco, Kohl’s, Staples, Walgreens and many other stores are in the process of creating similar options for consumers.

Since voice search is 3x more likely to be local, it’s also important to ensure your business listing is updated on Google to reach those local searchers (with accurate hours, an up-to-date address, photos and reviews, etc.).

12. Product Videos

Even when consumers are online, they’re still going to have the same questions about a product’s functionality and design that they’d have in-store. To compete in ecommerce, you’re going to have to answer all their questions digitally, and one of the easiest ways to do that is through video.

A high-quality video addressing your product’s design and function is one of the best ways to sell your product. Your video can appeal to your consumer’s emotions, persuading them more convincingly than text.

Redsbaby, an Australian baby stroller company, does a great job of this. Their videos of baby strollers display actors using Redsbaby strollers throughout a “typical day,” so consumers can feel confident that they understand what they’re purchasing, despite having never seen it in-store.

13. ROPO (“Research Online, Purchase Offline”)

It can be tricky to track how your digital efforts translate to offline sales.

Luckily, ROPO (“research online, purchase offline”) is a tool that will become more advanced and reliable in the upcoming year, and can help retailers accurately measure how well their digital ads are contributing to in-store sales.

ROPO combines information from social media, mobile tracking/geolocation, mobile payments, in-store inventory, analytics tools, CRM systems, and more, to figure out which ads and site pages led consumers to in-store purchases.

This is invaluable information. By knowing which digital ads are most efficiently contributing to sales, ecommerce businesses can create higher-conversion, more targeted campaigns, and feel confident that what they’re doing online is meaningful to their consumers.

14. Machine Learning and AI

You come across machine learning and AI every day. You just might not realize it.

Take Netflix: rather than dividing viewers by age, location, or gender, Netflix created 1,300 “taste communities.” Netflix makes recommendations on similar movie or TV show preferences based on what's most popular for the viewers in that community. This is the future of machine learning.

Other ecommerce platforms will soon see personal benefits from using machine learning and algorithms to uncover which content they should deliver to which audience. In the future, content will be divided by machine learning and AI, so consumers are fed only the content (or products), they’re most interested in.

Back to You

Nowadays, stores can’t compete without offering excellent ecommerce options. It isn’t enough to post product images to your site and hope your ideal customers will find them. By embracing some of these trends, you can meet your customers where they are and offer them a positive shopping experience.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ecommerce-trends

As an Etsy shop owner, I like to think my products alone are enough for customers to click "buy." Yet, it could be my two-day shipping guarantee. Or my product videos on TikTok. Or the sustainable packaging.

My point is this: offering a great product is essential, but it's not enough to move inventory. You need to build a positive shopping experience around your product. A big part of this is embracing the latest ecommerce trends.

In 2024, there's a whole lineup of new trends that could kickstart major growth for your ecommerce company — and we’ve chosen the top 14 trends we think will change how people buy and sell online.

Let's dive in.

1. Short-Form Video

Short-form video has taken the social media world by storm, and platforms like TikTok have become legitimate vehicles to promote your businesses

I recently took a stab at using TikTok to promote my Etsy store, and was surprisingly happy with the results. While my business account has a modest 62 followers, I was able to generate over a hundred likes on my first video.

If you decide to veer into TikTok territory, here's a word from the wise: don't be overtly promotional. TikTok users are pretty good at sniffing out a promotional video from an organic one.

Instead, adapt your content for the platform. This means jumping on trending music, effects, and video concepts, like in the example below:

@saraivaldezz cutest fall sweatshirt 🍁 #fall #fyp #foryou #snoopy #charliebrown #4yp ♬ Great Pumpkin Waltz - Vince Guaraldi Trio

2. Direct Messages (DMs) for Customer Service

Most of my customers message me directly on Etsy. However, I've noticed an increasing number are reaching out via Instagram. This mirrors a larger trend in the ecommerce world.

19% of consumers have reached out to customer service via DMs in the past 3 months, up 45% from 2022.

What does this mean for ecommerce store owners? For one, you'll need a more diverse customer service strategy, one that spans multiple platforms. Ignoring or delaying responses on channels like Instagram or Twitter could result in lost sales or declining customer satisfaction.

If you run a larger operation, consider investing in customer relationship management (CRM) software that can manage multi-channel interactions. On top of that, make sure your customer service teams are trained to handle messages professionally on social media.

3. Social Commerce

Would you ever buy a product on Instagram or TikTok? Nearly half (47%) of social media users would.

What's more, 42% trust social media platforms with their credit card information.

Social media is no longer just a tool for promotion — it's a marketplace where you can sell products directly to consumers. Take Instagram Shops, for example. You can open a storefront, add products, and run ads to boost awareness, directly from the Instagram app.

(Image Source)

Social media is ushering in a new era for digital commerce. Those that leverage social media as a direct sales channel can access an enormous— and still growing— customer base.

4. Sustainable Shopping

Now, more than ever, consumers want to back companies that align with their core values. Case in point: 46% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a company that actively donates to charity.

In my ecommerce store, all materials are ethically sourced, which is a point I  mention in each of my product listings. This is a great way to let potential customers know about the ethical considerations that are central to my business.

Corporate responsibility isn't just lip service; it's actually influencing consumers' purchasing decisions — and I predict more ecommerce stores will start prioritizing sustainable sourcing, packaging, and manufacturing in 2024.

(Image Source)

5. Same-Day or Next-Day Delivery

Amazon has opened nearly 45 shipping sites in the last four years, and is expected to grow this to 150 in the next several years.

When you consider 40% of U.S. consumers expect their online delivery to take two to three days to arrive, this play makes sense.

But the need for (delivery) speed isn't just for big retail giants.

Just last week, I received a notification from Etsy that sellers could update their processing time to include weekends. Meaning, if you fulfill orders on Sundays, your customers will see faster delivery times. I've personally discovered that the quicker my processing times on Etsy, the more customers want to buy.

Consumers don't just want fast delivery times, they expect it. In some cases, they even fork over more money for same-day or next-day delivery. If you don’t give consumers these options, they may turn to competitors who do.

6. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

When I moved into my apartment last year, I was on the hunt for the perfect couch. Nothing too bulky, or ornate, or mismatched with my existing decor.

The problem? As I was perusing Ikea's website, it was hard to envision what each couch would look like in my space from the product photos alone.

Fortunately, Ikea offers an AR app that lets you place 3D products in your home. The products are true-to-scale, so you can see whether it will fit and how it’ll look in your room.

Augmented reality and virtual reality will continue to keep the pace in 2024. Eventually, it will become standard for companies to offer AR and VR options.

Ultimately, these added benefits are worth the initial investment in new technology. As ecommerce grows, consumers are going to buy from companies that allow them the option of visually testing out products before purchase.

7. Livestream Shopping

Ever wanted to sell your wares on QCV or HSN? Now you can do something similar on social media.

In 2019, Amazon launched its livestream shopping platform, Amazon Live. Two years later, TikTok began testing a live shopping function in the United States. YouTube and Shopify closely followed suit, expanding their live shopping partnership.

All of these investments signal a more immersive and interactive future for e-commerce, one that goes beyond scrolling through static images and reading product descriptions.

(Image Source)

8. Automation and Chatbots for Online Ordering

With 1.3 billion people on Facebook Messenger, it makes sense to take advantage of chatbots for marketing, customer service, and sales.

With ecommerce, you can take it a step further.

Domino’s uses its Messenger bot, Dom, for full-menu ordering. The implications of this are huge: when fast and simple are priorities for consumers, Domino’s will beat out all the competition.

Plus, chatbot ordering is an opportunity for Domino’s to cater to its audience in a new way, proving itself to be a helpful and forward-thinking company.

If it makes sense for your business, I’d suggest creating a chatbot like Dom while it’s still an open field. In a few years, this could become a mainstream way of ordering, and lose some of its current novelty power.

9. Mobile First, Desktop Second

When shopping online, roughly 75% of consumers prefer using their mobile devices, compared to 15% that prefer desktop and 6% that prefer tablet.

As mobile purchasing continues to grow, it’s important to create an ecommerce site that’s optimized for mobile.

Fingerprint and facial recognition technology, as well as one-click payments, will simplify mobile payments and further encourage consumers to switch from desktop to mobile. Mobile will soon become the preferred payment method for ecommerce transactions.

Starbucks created a Mobile Order and Pay app in 2015. By 2021, 26% of all Starbucks orders were paid via mobile. Starbucks said their Mobile Order and Pay app is so popular, it creates congestion in stores and extra-long wait lines, which they’re attempting to solve by hiring more baristas.

If mobile ordering leads to a larger pool of in-store consumers, I’m thinking it’s a worthwhile investment.

10. Image Search

Picture this: you’re in a store and see a beautiful couch but don’t feel like paying full price, so you take a picture of it and use eBay’s image search to find similar products for a better deal.

As ecommerce transitions to mobile, companies will begin offering options to visually search for products by using personal photos, or photos found online.

Since image search offers opportunities to find similar products at a cheaper price online, it could eventually drive consumers to shop online even if they started in a physical store.

A few ecommerce businesses have already successfully implemented image search functions into their online platforms. Pinterest, for example, has its own image search function. On Pinterest, you can zoom in on an object in a Pin image and find similar objects.

11. Voice Search

As Amazon Echo, Google Home, and other voice-activated devices grow in popularity, voice search will become the preferred method of search. Around 40% of U.S. internet users use a voice assistant at least monthly.

It’s critical to optimize your business for voice search in 2024, or you could lose the vast majority of consumers who choose to shop through voice-activated devices.

Walmart made it possible for consumers to order any of their items by voice on the Google Express, and in the future, they’re going to allow consumers to place in-store pickup orders via Google Home. Target, Costco, Kohl’s, Staples, Walgreens and many other stores are in the process of creating similar options for consumers.

Since voice search is 3x more likely to be local, it’s also important to ensure your business listing is updated on Google to reach those local searchers (with accurate hours, an up-to-date address, photos and reviews, etc.).

12. Product Videos

Even when consumers are online, they’re still going to have the same questions about a product’s functionality and design that they’d have in-store. To compete in ecommerce, you’re going to have to answer all their questions digitally, and one of the easiest ways to do that is through video.

A high-quality video addressing your product’s design and function is one of the best ways to sell your product. Your video can appeal to your consumer’s emotions, persuading them more convincingly than text.

Redsbaby, an Australian baby stroller company, does a great job of this. Their videos of baby strollers display actors using Redsbaby strollers throughout a “typical day,” so consumers can feel confident that they understand what they’re purchasing, despite having never seen it in-store.

13. ROPO (“Research Online, Purchase Offline”)

It can be tricky to track how your digital efforts translate to offline sales.

Luckily, ROPO (“research online, purchase offline”) is a tool that will become more advanced and reliable in the upcoming year, and can help retailers accurately measure how well their digital ads are contributing to in-store sales.

ROPO combines information from social media, mobile tracking/geolocation, mobile payments, in-store inventory, analytics tools, CRM systems, and more, to figure out which ads and site pages led consumers to in-store purchases.

This is invaluable information. By knowing which digital ads are most efficiently contributing to sales, ecommerce businesses can create higher-conversion, more targeted campaigns, and feel confident that what they’re doing online is meaningful to their consumers.

14. Machine Learning and AI

You come across machine learning and AI every day. You just might not realize it.

Take Netflix: rather than dividing viewers by age, location, or gender, Netflix created 1,300 “taste communities.” Netflix makes recommendations on similar movie or TV show preferences based on what's most popular for the viewers in that community. This is the future of machine learning.

Other ecommerce platforms will soon see personal benefits from using machine learning and algorithms to uncover which content they should deliver to which audience. In the future, content will be divided by machine learning and AI, so consumers are fed only the content (or products), they’re most interested in.

Back to You

Nowadays, stores can’t compete without offering excellent ecommerce options. It isn’t enough to post product images to your site and hope your ideal customers will find them. By embracing some of these trends, you can meet your customers where they are and offer them a positive shopping experience.

via Perfecte news Non connection

Crafting Your Content Blueprint for the Rest of 2023 With Creator Modern Millie

If you fell off the bandwagon of sticking to your New Year's Resolution to become a content creator, you’re not too late.

Fall is the best time of year to get started, so I want to walk you through my step-by-step process for planning out the next four months of content. This process is the same one I've used to grow my brand, Modern Millie — it's helped me achieve over 350K subscribers on my YouTube channel, and over 140K followers on Instagram.

Whether you‘re a content creator or enterprise marketer, I have no doubt you’ll find something in this process that will work for you. Let's jump in.

Why is the fall the best time of year to start creating?

There are two major reasons the fall (primarily September through November) is one of the best times of the year to create content:

1. During the summer, the sun is out longer, people go on vacation, and kids aren’t in school so you’ll often see a dip in engagement on social media since people are outdoors more.
   Going into the fall season, it starts to get darker sooner, people fall back into their routines, and they get back into consuming social media.
2. You’re able to use the holidays to your advantage.

Here’s Stephanie, as an example.

Last year, Stephanie was getting ready to give up on being a content creator, but instead through my coaching, she worked on this four-month content strategy. From September through December, this is what happened:

• She posted 61 Reels (one video every other day)
• 16 of them got over 100,000 views
• 7 of them hit over 1,000,000 views
• Her most watched video received 36,000,000 views and landed her on Good Morning America
• She grew from 8K to 75K followers

Now that you can see the power of increasing your content creation efforts in the fall, let’s jump into my process.

Step One: Pick Your Platform

While the example I used talked about Instagram, this strategy can work for any of the three social platforms: Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

Pick one to start with at the beginning of your growth journey. This way you can put 100% energy into mastering the platform, as opposed to 33% energy into Instagram, 33% into YouTube, and 33% into TikTok (that would get you slower results).

Step Two: Pick Your Posting Frequency

This is going to be a schedule that you know you can realistically keep up with for the next three to four months. It has to be realistic for you, and something you can adapt into your current lifestyle. These are common frequencies that we see online:

➡️ YouTube: Once a week
➡️ Instagram: 3-5x per week
➡️ TikTok: Daily

Once you know how often you want to post, plug that into a calendar to see how many videos total you will be creating each month (see image for example). This is a number we will come back to in step 4.

Step Three: Get Clear On What Your Content Should Be

If your goal is growth or rapid growth online, it’s important to be intentional with every piece of content you create. Most businesses or creators will skip this step but it’s so critical to get clear on your vision, so that your content can be clear, as well.

To start, answer these three questions:

• What industry are you in?
• What section of that industry are you going to focus on?
• Who do you want to reach/who is your target audience?

Example:

What Industry are you in? Travel
What section of that industry are you going to focus on? San Diego Travel
Who do you want to reach/who is your target audience? San Diego Travel for Tourists

Knowing the answer to these questions will help you with our next step …

Step Four: Content Research

Before you even press record, you’ll want to do some research in your industry to see what people are currently looking for. The places I recommend to my students to do this research are these search engines:

• YouTube
• AnswerThePublic.com
• TikTok

What you’re going to do is type your industry or industry type into the search bar to see what results are suggested below.

Following our example from step three, as you can see in this screenshot from YouTube, people are searching for “San Diego Things To Do”, so I’m going to write that down as a video idea.

Same thing on TikTok. When I type in San Diego, some video ideas I can write down are “San Diego things to do”, “San Diego hidden gems”, and “San Diego food spots”:

You can repeat these steps by typing other words that have to do with your industry. For example, since my goal is to create “San Diego Travel for Tourists‘’ content, maybe I’ll type “tourists” into the search engine to see what's recommended.

Once you have a list of video ideas, you’re ready for step five.

Step Five: Plug Into Your Calendar and Start Creating

In step two, you calculated how many videos you would need to create in a month.

For our example, it was 14 videos/month.

I like to mix up my content so that there is room for spontaneity.

70% of my videos will be “search-based” video ideas (ie. the list of video ideas we created utilizing search engines).

But for the other 30%, I will leave room to adapt to trends or even make videos just for fun!

So if you post 14 videos/month maybe your breakdown will look like this:

• 10 search-based videos (these are easy to batch film ahead of time so you can plan content in advance).
• Four spontaneous videos (this leaves room for creative freedom and spontaneity).

And that's all there is to it. Now, it's time to start your content research and begin your four-month content plan. And remember: You'll want to iterate as you go. Once you begin identifying which types of content perform well (and which don't), you'll get better at choosing the specific topics best-suited for your brand over time. 

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/four-month-content-creation-plan-modern-millie

If you fell off the bandwagon of sticking to your New Year's Resolution to become a content creator, you’re not too late.

Fall is the best time of year to get started, so I want to walk you through my step-by-step process for planning out the next four months of content. This process is the same one I've used to grow my brand, Modern Millie — it's helped me achieve over 350K subscribers on my YouTube channel, and over 140K followers on Instagram.

Whether you‘re a content creator or enterprise marketer, I have no doubt you’ll find something in this process that will work for you. Let's jump in.

Why is the fall the best time of year to start creating?

There are two major reasons the fall (primarily September through November) is one of the best times of the year to create content:

1. During the summer, the sun is out longer, people go on vacation, and kids aren’t in school so you’ll often see a dip in engagement on social media since people are outdoors more.
   Going into the fall season, it starts to get darker sooner, people fall back into their routines, and they get back into consuming social media.
2. You’re able to use the holidays to your advantage.

Here’s Stephanie, as an example.

Last year, Stephanie was getting ready to give up on being a content creator, but instead through my coaching, she worked on this four-month content strategy. From September through December, this is what happened:

• She posted 61 Reels (one video every other day)
• 16 of them got over 100,000 views
• 7 of them hit over 1,000,000 views
• Her most watched video received 36,000,000 views and landed her on Good Morning America
• She grew from 8K to 75K followers

Now that you can see the power of increasing your content creation efforts in the fall, let’s jump into my process.

Step One: Pick Your Platform

While the example I used talked about Instagram, this strategy can work for any of the three social platforms: Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

Pick one to start with at the beginning of your growth journey. This way you can put 100% energy into mastering the platform, as opposed to 33% energy into Instagram, 33% into YouTube, and 33% into TikTok (that would get you slower results).

Step Two: Pick Your Posting Frequency

This is going to be a schedule that you know you can realistically keep up with for the next three to four months. It has to be realistic for you, and something you can adapt into your current lifestyle. These are common frequencies that we see online:

➡️ YouTube: Once a week
➡️ Instagram: 3-5x per week
➡️ TikTok: Daily

Once you know how often you want to post, plug that into a calendar to see how many videos total you will be creating each month (see image for example). This is a number we will come back to in step 4.

Step Three: Get Clear On What Your Content Should Be

If your goal is growth or rapid growth online, it’s important to be intentional with every piece of content you create. Most businesses or creators will skip this step but it’s so critical to get clear on your vision, so that your content can be clear, as well.

To start, answer these three questions:

• What industry are you in?
• What section of that industry are you going to focus on?
• Who do you want to reach/who is your target audience?

Example:

What Industry are you in? Travel
What section of that industry are you going to focus on? San Diego Travel
Who do you want to reach/who is your target audience? San Diego Travel for Tourists

Knowing the answer to these questions will help you with our next step …

Step Four: Content Research

Before you even press record, you’ll want to do some research in your industry to see what people are currently looking for. The places I recommend to my students to do this research are these search engines:

• YouTube
• AnswerThePublic.com
• TikTok

What you’re going to do is type your industry or industry type into the search bar to see what results are suggested below.

Following our example from step three, as you can see in this screenshot from YouTube, people are searching for “San Diego Things To Do”, so I’m going to write that down as a video idea.

Same thing on TikTok. When I type in San Diego, some video ideas I can write down are “San Diego things to do”, “San Diego hidden gems”, and “San Diego food spots”:

You can repeat these steps by typing other words that have to do with your industry. For example, since my goal is to create “San Diego Travel for Tourists‘’ content, maybe I’ll type “tourists” into the search engine to see what's recommended.

Once you have a list of video ideas, you’re ready for step five.

Step Five: Plug Into Your Calendar and Start Creating

In step two, you calculated how many videos you would need to create in a month.

For our example, it was 14 videos/month.

I like to mix up my content so that there is room for spontaneity.

70% of my videos will be “search-based” video ideas (ie. the list of video ideas we created utilizing search engines).

But for the other 30%, I will leave room to adapt to trends or even make videos just for fun!

So if you post 14 videos/month maybe your breakdown will look like this:

• 10 search-based videos (these are easy to batch film ahead of time so you can plan content in advance).
• Four spontaneous videos (this leaves room for creative freedom and spontaneity).

And that's all there is to it. Now, it's time to start your content research and begin your four-month content plan. And remember: You'll want to iterate as you go. Once you begin identifying which types of content perform well (and which don't), you'll get better at choosing the specific topics best-suited for your brand over time. 

via Perfecte news Non connection