Many people are frustrated with their email campaigns because they seem to be ineffective. After composing a well-formatted email and pressing send, there’s a sinking feeling — and they’re left wondering why their email gets low open rates and non-existent clicks.
And even worse, they do not see the ROI. Everyone has been there. If 81% of businesses say email drives customers, why do so many businesses feel that their email campaigns are a complete failure?
You might have heard how spending $1 on email marketing leads to $42 ROI. But why aren’t you creating the same success?
The truth is that many email campaigns fail because they are not clear enough to lead the business to its goal. If your emails are failing, you have to do a hard reset. And a hard reset doesn’t necessarily mean making significant changes.
Only 4% of consumers who click on the website are going to make a purchase. This number may seem small, but it is twice the rate of search engines and social media.
Do you want the simple truth? If your email marketing efforts are failing, the problem is with your overall campaign. Not that email marketing itself is a failed trend. This article is going to review some of the factors that cause email marketing campaigns to fail.
If you’re driving an email marketing campaign and getting low open and click rates, below are a few things, you might be taking wrong.
1. You are Using Spammy or Boring Subject Lines
According to the Content Marketing Institute, marketers rely heavily on email to acquire and nurture leads.
But not every organization is good at it. Everyone sends emails to friends, families, and co-workers – shouldn’t it be so easy to send an email to a lead? Sending friendly emails is easy, but sending emails aimed at growing your business is a different story.
When you don’t have a clear strategy, it’s easy to use plain vanilla subject lines that don’t generate curiosity. And when you’re not careful, you can use spammy trigger lines that will throw your email into the Junk folder.
We all know what that means: Emails that go straight to the trash bin hurt your business before your leads have a chance to open them.
2. Not Segmenting Email Lists
Email subscribers aren’t members of a cult, so why would you send them all the same messages?
Only cult members think and act like this, so unless you are leading a cult, you should be sending different messages to your client based on how they act.
According to the DMA’s 2015 National Client Email Report, 77% of email marketing ROI came from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns. Additionally, of the marketers who use segmentation, 43% use up to six segments on average.
3. Wrong Timing
Many marketers pay attention to content and headlines but overlook timing, which is an essential factor. A good headline improves open rates, and great content drives conversions, but emails have to arrive in the inbox at the right time for all this to happen. In other words, all other efforts are in vain if the timing is not correct.
While there is no specific time that can be termed as the best time to send emails, emails sent within the specific time frame have been proven to produce better results. These include emails sent from Tuesday to Thursday at 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Results may vary depending on the industry and nature of the customers. The best way is to send emails, track engagement, and identify times when open and click rates are high.
4. You Don’t Know Your Target Audience
As already mentioned, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) study showed that 77% of ROI comes from targeted, segmented, and triggered campaigns.
Not identifying your potential target audience can present a significant hurdle when it comes to sending email communications. Marketers (and businesses) should do their homework before committing to their email marketing tasks – this means clearly defining their target audience and their needs, preferences, demographics, and psychological characteristics.
5. You Didn’t Get Permission
At some point, you are likely on the receiving end of an unapproved email marketing campaign. Likewise, you can probably figure out why nothing will prompt a consumer to clean out their inbox and start clicking the “Unsubscribe” button on emails. When consumers feel that they have been tricked into a flood of emails from marketers, they usually feel as if their privacy is being invaded. They will most often delete your emails, unsubscribe from your list, and report your attempts as spam in the worst case.
Avoid blocking or automatically resending your messages to an account’s junk bin by getting permission from your target audience instead. Start by implementing a binary opt-in protocol that requires customers to request access to your email and then confirm that they did indeed request it. Research shows that double opt-in subscribers have a 75.6% increase in the total message opens and a 114% increase in clicks.
6. Using Unreadable or Too Many Fonts
A typical design error is choosing unreadable or too many fonts for your email copy. It sounds basic, doesn’t it? However, it is often ignored. Choosing the wrong font or too many clashing fonts can make your emails completely unreadable. Chances are, your customers won’t open and read your content anymore. It means losing customers and money. Choose simple, clean fonts that are easy to read in emails. Try to stick to only one or two different fonts at most.
7. Sending Emails that Offer Little Value
Many entrepreneurs join email marketing with the mindset that customers will easily subscribe and open their emails. They will click on the link to purchase something.
While this is a real end game for email marketing, you should base your campaign around the idea of building trust by providing value to your customers.
Email campaigns are complex and include dozens of different elements such as subject line, text, call to action, product, scheduling, and target market. No wonder too many entrepreneurs are overwhelmed by email marketing! The result is that these entrepreneurs send the same regular type of email at predictable times.
Conclusion
Running an effective email marketing drive is not exactly rocket science, but it is an art. It requires careful planning and careful execution.
You have to test different email templates on a small group of loyal users if you’re looking to tweak your formatting or design to see how they respond to changes in email design, subject line, or content. It will help you identify the templates that best fulfill your purpose.
Similarly, try to research the best time to send marketing emails: The time you send your emails directly affects your campaigns’ open rate and response rate. If you need further more assistance regarding the same, you can contact us. Our experts will help you regarding the same. Call now!