What happened to the other 98%?

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Here’s a vital question I have from a recent discussion with my CEO at the Student Loan Network:

We talk a lot, especially in marketing, about click through, conversion, and retention rates. Invariably, these rates are small fractions in all of the discussions I’ve had. 1% click through rate, 10% open rate, etc.

When you turn these metrics around, they’re a little more depressing.

90% did not open rate.
99% did not click through rate.
95% did not buy something rate.
96% did not volunteer rate.
94% did not complete the form rate.

As a marketer, that looks appalling, so we state things in the positive – ooh, that cold calling campaign landed a 2% conversion rate.

What the heck is happening to the other 98%? Didn’t open? Why not? Didn’t click? Why not?

Often we talk in marketing about increasing market share or conversion by a few percentage points.

Why don’t we ever talk about increasing conversion by an order of magnitude?

If you were in charge of a marketing campaign, how would you get the did X/did not X rates to switch places?

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Comments

6 responses to “What happened to the other 98%?”

September 9, 2008

eaon pritchard

1% click thru they have a party! that's massive numbers. 0.1% is often closer to the truth.

Reply
September 9, 2008

eaon pritchard

1% click thru they have a party! that’s massive numbers. 0.1% is often closer to the truth.

Reply
September 9, 2008

Invisaline

I think its because in marketing we try and get a large market group. A large enough sample to make a 2% increase a huge deal. A 2% increase on a buy something rate of say 1 million send outs is 20,000 more sales. That’s a lot. But I AGREE with you what happens to the other 970,000 people who don’t buy the product!!

Reply
September 9, 2008

Ari Herzog

Perhaps 98% are not clicking because nobody is asking them to? Give me a thing and I'll say it looks nice. Give me a reason to press the button that turns the thing into a transformer, and I'll thank you for it.

Reply
September 10, 2008

Ari Herzog

Perhaps 98% are not clicking because nobody is asking them to? Give me a thing and I’ll say it looks nice. Give me a reason to press the button that turns the thing into a transformer, and I’ll thank you for it.

Reply
September 10, 2008

Ari Herzog

Perhaps 98% are not clicking because nobody is asking them to? Give me a thing and I'll say it looks nice. Give me a reason to press the button that turns the thing into a transformer, and I'll thank you for it.

Reply