I'm trying to think back in my marketing days when the whole idea behind capturing consumer emails and then creating an uber cool template to mail them out was all the rage.  It still is, but the consumer has kept pace and it now takes a lot more effort to keep those open rates where they need to be.

Interesting read from MediaPost on the trend of email open rates notes that for the last quarter it was 5.9% on average. 

One of our clients in the outdoor space has done an amazing amount of business with us this year.  And a by-product of their ad spend has been 1,000's of emails  captured from our user base via an opt-in trigger.  We capture the emails and then at the end of the month we email the file to the client.

Just this week I asked how things were going, and they were clear in that they really had little frame of reference for what a "good" open rate would be.  I told them anywhere north of 8% was outstanding.  Their reply? 

.8% opt outs
27.2% opens
33.2% clicks

Almost 4x the average open rate.  Amazing as well to me since they manage this program in house and do not use an agency.  So what is the deal?

While I would like to take credit for all of this I'll only take half.....I must say that the marketing team with this outdoor brand is one of the most passionate I have come across.  They have a clear idea of who their customer is, what message is appropriate and most importantly, they do not put any "fluff" in their marketing communications.

The key part of their email list is that it was generated from our outdoor network.  Passionate consumers, in this case from climbers, who knew the brand and had good experiences with it.  I would say "trust" would be a good word to describe the relationship. 

Our members spend on average 2x more on outdoor gear than any Joe Public you can buy from a list broker off the street.  And they probably cost less as well.

By targeting the email communications with enthusiasts in the climbing space, this company is just killing it when it comes to stealing market share from the big players.  It amazes me that up and coming brands can still do this in such a saturated market.

I'll try to dig up some more stats on what this open rate is doing for their paid search and brand awareness as well.  It doesn't end with the email open rate.  The company will now start to rank higher on Google as more consumers try to engage the brand, search for the brand products and also search for the items in their brand category.