Many of you know each year I send an Annual Email Message out to my network each year. Here are the stats for my 2017 message.
This year I decided to include a game at the bottom of the message. I offered an $800 LinkedIn coaching program to a lucky person who read the entire message and replied accordingly. I will announce the winner on 2/1/18 per the official rules of the game. 367 replied per the instructions in the email.
If you want to see the 2017 email message, here it is – 2016 Annual Message
Here are the statistics from the past 5 years of annual messages, including this year (2017)
Google Sheet – Annual Message Statistics
Some of the statistics I found interesting this year include:
I originally had over 15,000 email addresses in the compiled list. However, as usual I went through the list to purge out the Excludes and email address duplicates. The list dropped to about 12,116. Still a large increase over 2015.
The % of opens decreased slightly this year by about 3%. I am not sure why this happened, however it could have something to do with the time frame of the report. I wrote this report less than 2 weeks after the last mailing.
The % of unsubscribes dropped slightly. This could be a result of my improved style of engaging with my networks when I add new members to each network (LinkedIn, Personal & Business Contacts).
The % of replies nearly doubled to 550. I have no specific idea why this occurred, but I am very happy to see the increase.
The % of clicks diminished again this year, but again, I reduced the number of links in this year’s message to test if it increased opens and reads.
For those who have not experienced my annual email, I do this for three primary reasons:
- To thank my network for allowing me in their lives.
- To keep my name in front of my network, at least once a year.
- To ‘Poke’ my network for an opportunity to get into a conversation when they are ready.
Again, only a few weeks in, I already have numerous conversations from this message.
I’d love to hear any insights anyone has on this message style and how I could increase the value of these messages.