The Top 5 Reasons People STILL Aren’t Opening Your Emails
You’ve learned some next-level tactics and techniques to improve your email marketing…and you’re starting to put them to work.
You’ve personalized your emails, adding customized elements and content to help build relationships and drive engagement.
You’ve made your emails mobile-friendly.
You’ve split tested different aspects of your emails, including: subject lines, content, layout, and design to see what your audience prefers.
But what if you’ve done all this (and more!) and you’re STILL not happy with your open rates?
What’s going on?
First, don’t panic. If you’ve just started applying your newly-learned tactics and techniques, it can take a while to see results. It takes time and effort to build a list of targeted, engaged audience members.
But just in case you need a refresher, and you want to stay on top of potential issues, here are the top 5 reasons people don’t open emails:
Uninteresting/Irrelevant Content
People are unlikely to open emails if the content doesn’t seem interesting or relevant to them. Provide value in your emails. Do this by segmenting your list and adding tags, ensuring that emails go to the people who will naturally be receptive to your message.
Also, make sure your email subject lines accurately convey the content of your messages. People may want the information you’re sending, but are unaware that it’s in the email.
Weak Subject Lines
If your subject lines are dull, generic, too long, or overly promotional, people are unlikely to open your emails. Make sure to create subject lines that are captivating, succinct, and get people’s attention.
Take the mystery out of it: discover what people like beforehand! Try out different subject lines and see how your test market reacts. For example, test one subject line with an emoji, one without. Or, test completely different subject lines and see which one performs best.
Lack of Personalization
Personalization can help make your email recipients feel special and increase the likelihood that they open your emails. Customize the content and timing using segmentation, but also add tags to your subject line and email body copy.
Add a [first-name] tag to the subject line and salutation. You can also add tags related to job title, industry, location, or your recipients’ special interest.
Too Many Emails
If people receive too many emails from you, they may start to ignore them and eventually unsubscribe. When you flood their inbox with emails, it makes subscribers feel like you don’t value their time. It starts to feel overly promotional.
Also, the more emails you send, the more likely you are to deliver ill-timed messaging: for example, an offer when your recipients are still just learning about a related topic. Respect your contacts and only send them what they need.
Unfamiliar Sender
If people don’t recognize the sender, they’re more likely to ignore the email. Clearly state who you are in the ‘from’ field and include contact information in your email signature. Most importantly: Make sure you only send emails from the domain where contacts opted-in to your list (otherwise they may not recognize the email).
Want to learn more? Check out my new course “Email Marketing Essentials” . It will help you bring to life next-level email marketing tactics and techniques – and get results.
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