Opening your email inbox is becoming an awful lot like trekking out to your home mailbox: full of possibilities, but so often disappointing. That’s not because email marketing isn’t relevant; in fact, across every industry, the email open rate is 32%. It’s hard to find engagement like that in other channels. If you want to know other key email marketing stats you should download our white paper, “Email Marketing for Lead Generation and Sales Growth.”
Email marketing can take some trial and error to reach your target audience effectively. Take a look at these six common mistakes that companies make which can lead to emails being unread or discarded:
You’re Obsessed With Quantity Over Quality. Sure, your email list is in the thousands, but have you ever invested any time investigating whether those contacts are members of your target audience? This also begs the question: how do you know whether you’re adding value if you don’t know who you’re emailing?
Your Opt-In Is a Pain. Do you ask website visitors to provide too much information in order to get their email address? If you’ve got more than a couple of fields, it’s probably preventing people from signing up for email marketing. Try eliminating everything but their name and email, and if you want to get extreme, just provide one field for their email address.
Your Offer Is Available Elsewhere. Are you offering an ebook in exchange for an email address? Make sure the information isn’t already available elsewhere. You may be offering info that the audience can access just as easily on your competitor’s blog page.
You’re Not Including a Call to Action. You may be cranking out snappy, engaging emails that your audience loves, but you’ll never know it because you haven’t invited them to take the next step. Don’t forget to tell them what you want them to do, whether that’s browsing a new product line or checking you out on social media.
Your Marketing Happens in Silos. You may have print materials, post on social media and send an eNewsletter, but if you don’t create a unified strategy with crossover efforts between these channels, you’re leaving money on the table. Specifically, with email, try inviting social media contacts to subscribe to your email list, and include a QR code on your print materials that takes the recipient to a page to subscribe.
You Need to go Back to Cotillion. It’s easy to forget in the digital marketing space that you’re still making connections with humans. That’s why a thank-you email is so important. If someone provides their email address, that’s a gift worth some gratitude. Send a thank-you email, and be sure to include a valuable discount or other benefits to show your appreciation.
If your email marketing could use a little new life and a few more subscribers, take a look at this great article from SJC Marketing’s Jessica Stewart. You’ll find out why those purchased email lists aren’t such a great deal and why freebies can give your email marketing efforts a jolt.