Email Marketing can be a great way to reach out to your audience and grab their attention or a way to maintain a connection with them after they’ve left your site. But, be sure to watch out for the pitfalls of email that will cause people to send it right to the trash.
Related Blog: How Email Automation Tools Can Improve Your Marketing Results
When using email marketing, you want to increase your email’s engagement as much as possible. This increases the authority of your domain which decreases the chances of ending up in a spam filter. That’s why, if people are ignoring your emails, it’s crucial to identify the problem and attain a solution.
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Here are seven reasons why your email could be getting ignored:
1. Your Emails Look Like Spam
If your recipient thinks it’s spam, they delete it. And, more importantly, they’ll mark it as spam which tells their email service provider (ESP) that maybe you’re trying to sneak some spam by the filter and it should look out for your emails more often.
What is an email client? ESP’s are companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo who offer email services like Gmail, Outlook, and more.
Email marketing that appears too solicitous can be flagged as spam by the email client’s filter setting. While some people are diligent about checking their spam folder for valuable content every so often most never even touch it. This results in having your email lost into the void.
So, how can you make your emails look less like spam?
- Don’t confuse your reader: When writing headlines or subject lines, make sure they match the content in the body of the email. If it doesn’t, people may feel duped and report your message.
- Make sure your emails are on-brand: A common reason for getting sent to spam is that people don’t remember subscribing to you. Even though they gave you their permission and email address, they still see an unwanted guest in their inbox. To alleviate this, make sure your emails match the branding of the pages that saw them subscribe and make it clear who is sending the email.
- Watch for trigger words: Spam is well-known by now and there are a few words that people and algorithms look for to decide if you’re spam or not. These include things like winner, congratulations, cancel any time, click here, etc.
2. Avoid Having Too Much Fluff in Your Emails
Opening an email and being presented with a huge expanse of text and paragraphs is intimidating and overwhelming.
Just get to the point. In the age of short attention spans, people don’t have time to read more than 500 words from their own mothers, let alone 1000 in a marketing email. The ideal length of an email is around 200 words.
The best way to keep your word count down is to cut the fluff. Anything that’s not important can be cut. Whittle it down to only the most important points you’re trying to get across and nothing else.
Try not to make your email look like the next great American novel. If you have a longer message to communicate, use it as a conversion opportunity. Create a downloadable guide and include a call to action in the email linked to a landing page where people can download more information on the topic.
3. Your Email Has No Context
As we mentioned earlier, when someone receives an email from you, they should not be unsure why they are receiving it.
Make sure you are sending emails that make sense for them to receive and are filled with relevant content and, more importantly, make sure that they have given you permission to send. If someone has not filled out a form on your website to receive information from you, chances are you should not be sending them marketing information emails.
4. Make Your Emails Personal
Not everyone likes the same things and not everyone will respond or engage with the same things. So, you can’t just send the same email to everyone in your database and expect it to perform across the board. In that same vein, emails designed to go out to everyone sound robotic and impersonal and, if that’s the case, they are more likely to be deleted, sometimes without even being opened.
Start by creating segmented lists that will allow you to alter the content to a specific audience or person; personalize your emails by including personalization tokens like the recipient's first name. 74% of marketers say that personalizing emails increases engagement which, as we mentioned above, is a very good thing.
5. But Don’t Make Your Emails Too Personal
Just as some people don’t like something being too impersonal, having a stranger be too personal can send the wrong message. Don’t send too much too soon.
When you consider adding personalization to email marketing communications, also consider the buyer's place in their buyer's journey. Someone who has recently identified themselves as a lead may be less inclined to enjoy personalization tokens in your marketing messages as someone who feels they have established a relationship with your brand.
6. Your Emails Are a Hassle
Maybe they didn’t ignore your emails at first, but once they realized how much work you require of them, and all the hoops they have to go through to respond properly, they suddenly found something else to do.
Don’t send your leads a chore.
Be clear about what you want, and make it as simple of a process as possible. Include all required information, such as links, so the individual can easily guide themselves through your process. It shouldn’t be difficult, time-consuming, or frustrating.
7. Your Email Was Lost In Cyberspace
Sometimes an email simply doesn’t get to the intended recipient for many different reasons.
The most common reasons are hard bounces and soft bounces.
Hard Bounce: This means an email couldn’t be delivered for a permanent reason and will never be delivered.
Soft Bounce: This simply means that, at the moment, your email cannot be delivered but, if things clear up, it still will be. This could be because an inbox is full or a file is too large. In this case, the email will still be attempted a few times before failing. So, keep an eye out.
Hard bounces are typically more of a concern than soft bounces because hard bounces indicate some sort of issue with the content you are sending or your sender reputation. Soft bounces can be due to issues on the recipient’s side, like an inbox that has reached its capacity.
8. You Are Sending All Emails At The Same Time
Another big mistake is to think that everyone checks their emails at the same time. Sending them all together means you increase the chances of having your emails buried beneath what could be dozens of other emails which increases the chances of yours being skipped and then deleted.
Using a tool like Seventh Sense means you can optimize your send time depending on the time your recipient is most likely to open it. This is unique for each and every person on your email lists.
Don’t let your emails be ignored! Fill them with quality and timely content and make sure it’s clear to your audience what you’re doing. Use these tips to craft an engaging marketing email.
