Today we’re talking about RFM: The Critical Email Marketing Metric.

A Forrester Research study recently demonstrated that 71% of all email marketers consider click-through rate as a valuable metric and 61% also track open rates. There is, however, one very important metric that is applied be less than one quarter of all email marketers. This is surprising, considering it can provide significant results. The following is a definition of that metric, as well as how to optimize it to increase ROI.

Ignoring this critical aspect of your customers’ profiles can be a serious shortcoming as research has proven that:

-Recency - When was the last time the customer made a purchase or performed a conversion?-Frequency - How many purchases or conversions were made over a set period of time?-Monetary Value - How much money did they spend?

This will lead to greater accuracy in your segmentation, a positive reputation and decrease in list churn and fatigue. Design a re-engagement strategy to recapture inactive customers and target to your higher spending customers for increased ROI.

Encouraging direct one on one communication and feedback drives home the message that you know that they’re special and you’re working to reinforce that relationship. A sliding scale can be devised, with the largest discounts going to the least responsive and inactive customers to encourage their return to activity.

For visual learners: RFM - The Critical Email Marketing Metric

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