A few months ago we decided to change the first email in our onboarding drip campaign.
While the email performed 2x better than our second best email in the campaign, there was a problem with it…
We had a lot of clicks with the call to action, but not as many people followed through with the action itself (i.e. joining the webinar).
Fair call. People might not want to join the webinar after reading its details.
So we decided to change our first onboarding email to one that promotes our awesome support (we use Intercom to chat to our customers in real-time).
And it didn’t work out…
Result: 65% less clicks and 17% less opens.
Holy Guacamole, we screwed up! Right? … Nope. The numbers lie.
Actually, it did work out!
We tripled our monthly revenue in the same time frame as the change.
Say what?!
We started using Intercom to manage our customer support (and put it in our drip campaign, like I mentioned above). And because of it, we had:
- … more people asking us for help
- … provided more consultancy advice
- … spoken directly to more customers in real-time
Not everything that can be counted counts.
Not everything that counts can be counted.
— William Bruce Cameron
Our customers’ success turned into our success. Woo!
Numbers can lie
Lesson learnt: Don’t judge an email by its click through rate.
We have learnt to focus on overarching drip campaign goals (e.g. increase in revenue). A call to action button might not lead to an action beyond the initial click.
And most importantly, customers are the core to your business, so make them as awesome as you can. It will always pay off. Period.
Remember, positive email metrics can lie.
Let us know if you’ve had similar stories – we’d love to hear them!