By Lauren Adley
Email marketing, at least on paper, is the most effective form of marketing, since it boasts a ROI rate of 4400%! This means that for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you get $44 back. Seems like a pretty awesome deal, and while this number is accurate, you have probably found that things are a bit different in reality. There are plenty of factors that determine the success of your email campaigns, such as your email subject line, email content, design, as well as your target audience demographics.
For instance, although men are just as likely to convert from an email opened on a desktop device as women, women are more likely to convert on a tablet, whereas men are more likely to do the same on their smartphones. With that in mind, let’s a look at seven reasons why your email marketing campaigns are not working and what you should be doing about it.
1. Your Subject Lines Are Dull
The most important element of your email is its subject line, because if it fails to capture the reader’s attention, all of the other elements, such as content, links, or your CTA, will be rendered useless. According to research done by Hubspot, subject lines which were up to 30 characters in length sported the highest email open rates. This is especially important because of mobile devices, which are not able to display lengthy subject lines in their entirety. Also, personalizing your subject lines can cause your open rates to skyrocket.
2. Your Emails Are Not Concise Enough
Nowadays, you only have a few seconds to capture someone’s attention online, and it’s even worse when you have subscribers opening your emails on their smartphones, in which case you have less than two seconds. On top of that, email recipients also have a problem with multiple messages inside a single email, messages which are too long, or which lack a clear point or a CTA. Try and keep your messages short and sweet.
3. Your Email Content Is Not Balanced
If your emails feature too much text or if they feature only images, you can expect to see poor results in your email campaigns. Human beings respond well to visuals, which is why you should consider including relevant images or graphics in your emails to go along with text. Keep in mind that featuring just images in your messages is also bad because not all recipients will be able to view them since they might have disabled image loading in order to save bandwidth.
4. You Didn’t Focus on User Experience
If your emails feature just text written in a generic font and a hyperlink at the end of it, then it’s hardly a surprise why your email marketing efforts have been less than successful. If you want to create an email that works, then you need to put some work into it. Include an interesting stat highlighted in a different colour, as well as an eye-catching image. Also, if some bits of info are more important than others, type them out using a larger font size. Finally, make sure your CTA also contrasts visually with the rest of your email, so it doesn’t go unnoticed.
5. You Are Sending Emails at the Wrong Time
According to research, Tuesday is the best day to send out your email on, because that is pretty much when all the real work starts since most of Monday is spent on getting used to working again after the weekend. And as far as the old rule of sending your email newsletters in the morning, you can forget about it, since most people are too stressed out early in the day with their existing workload, which means they will be more likely to discard your email. If you want them to open and/reply, it would be better to send your emails in the afternoon, or even in the evening.
6. You Rely on Generic and Repurposed Content
Simply rehashing bits of your old posts and sending them out as email messages will show your readers that you don’t really care about building a great relationship with them. Even if your old content is useful and relevant, it still needs to be unique in order to show that you care about your recipients. As for what sort of content should be included in your email, you have a few options at your disposal. First, there is the content which is relevant to your industry. Second, there are your personal stories and anecdotes related to your area of expertise. Third, there is spicy and controversial content that will get shared a lot.
7. Summary
While email marketing is effective, it does require you to do more than simply buy an email list and send out there same generic email to everyone. Start implementing these tips in your email marketing campaigns today, and you will be able to improve open and click-through rates in no time. Good luck!
Lauren Adley is a writer and editor at EssayOnTime and Rush My Essay . She is dedicated to her family, work and friends. Also, she was working at Essay Writing Lab and Best Term Papers .She is keen on reading, playing the guitar and traveling. She is interested in educational, marketing and blogging issues. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter and Google+.
Marketing stock photo by garagestock/Shutterstock
