Small business owners and entrepreneurs often ask what a good response rate or conversion rate is for various types of marketing. So I’m sure many of you will be interested in seeing some of the numbers from the new 2010 Response Rate Trend Report from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).
But I write this post with some hesitation.
Because these numbers are aggregated across all types of industries–including business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets. They also combine averages for marketing aimed at getting both leads and orders, at all price points.
So they’re taken from an extremely broad sample of businesses…which means you should NOT take the numbers below as gospel or as a definitive benchmark for your business. Instead, think of them as general guidelines until you have more relevant ones to use.
And with that said, let’s get on with it…
In general, the DMA found that response rates for marketing to businesses were generally higher than for marketing to consumers. That makes sense given that B-to-B marketing is usually more targeted–by industry or size of business, for example–than B-to-C marketing.
They also found that campaigns to generate leads or sales of high-end products and services also had higher response rates. The leads result is a no brainer since it’s easier to get people to sign up for freebies than buy. If you’re surprised that high-end sales were at the top as well–especially in this economy–remember that those marketers are most likely going after a very targeted affluent audience.
In short, it pays to know and target your audience well.
More specifically, the Direct Marketing Association found…
- On average, emails to a house list (your own list) had a 19.5% open rate, with 6.6% of recipients clicking on a link in the email and 1.7% buying or responding to the call to action on the page they clicked through to. The average bounce-back rate was 3.7% and 0.8% of recipients unsubscribed.
- For direct mail, the response rate for mailings in letter-sized envelopes was 3.4% for a house list and 1.4% for a prospect list.
- For paid search engine marketing, the average cost per click was $3.79 with a 3.81% conversion rate. On the landing page, the conversion rate was slightly higher, at 4.43 percent.
- Interestingly, pay-per-click campaigns were the odd duck–with 70% of pay-per-click campaigns directed at an offer for free information instead of a sale…essentially a two or three-step sales process.
- Outbound telemarketing to prospects had the highest response rate at 6.2%, but the average cost per order or lead was $309.25. For a house list, the response rate was even higher at 10.4%.
As always, I recommend that you test your marketing and develop your own history of response rates and conversion rates–keeping in mind that even a small improvement can significantly boost your bottom-line.
Great breakdown on what most marketers classify a “good” conversion rate. However, we’ve seen much better results when email marketing is delivered using a sniper-rifle approach as opposed to the standard shotgun email blasts that so many retailers are using these days. In fact, the conversion rates jump when email is delivered based on an individual’s shopping characteristics. For example, delivering a personalized email to an individual that touched the cart but failed to complete the purchase resulted in significantly higher conversion rates than what this article reported.