[Infographic] What's a good open rate for employee emails? Internal Email Benchmarks

The one thing I'm always asked about email

Over the years I’ve spoken at events and conducted webinars about every aspect of creating, sending and measuring effective communications through the email channel.

When the floor is opened to questions I’m always asked this one question. Always.

What is a good open rate?

And I always give the same reply.

It depends…

I’m not hedging my bets here. It really does depend on the current state of your internal communications. What types of communications are you are sending, how often are you sending them - and to what audiences? And what kind of opens are you looking at? If it’s just the general open rate - that can be pretty meaningless. You want to define what you’re measuring, such as opened by specific audiences, by geography, opened on a desktop/smartphone. How often are they opening? Sometimes measuring opens over three issues of a newsletter can provide a much more meaningful open rate.

More importantly - did they open and click on any links? Unless there is absolutely no link or call-to-action to be found in the campaign, never look at open rates in isolation. Clicks indicate deeper engagement than just opens.

Create and use your own benchmarks and trends

While knowing what someone else’s open and click rates are, it is more important to create your own unique benchmarks tied to your goals. Review trends over months, quarters and the financial year to get a truly accurate view of peaks and troughs in employee activity. You will have a better understanding of how you can tweak and improve.

But, I do happen to have a benchmark infographic to get you started

You need to start somewhere, I know that, so we’ve created an infographic that gives you insight into typical open rates by general corporate communications, IC newsletters and also internal events. We also break it down by mobile as well as by business sector.

Internal Communications Benchmarks - Infographic from Kevin Ivers

See below for the follow-on infographic: 6 Top Tips to Measure Your Success with Internal Email Benchmarks.

6 Top Tips to Measure Your Success With Internal Email Benchmarks from Kevin Ivers

Poppulo is the global leader in employee communications technology. Our pioneering software and expert advisory services are transforming internal communications, creating more connected, aligned and successful organizations all over the world. Interested in using Poppulo to improve your email performance? Request an online demo today!