This guide will tell you why your email campaign is falling apart and how to fix it with some strategies, methods and procedures that will turn things around.
Sign 1. You Have a Low Opening Rate/CTR
The first sign that you have active campaigns that are going nowhere is in the metric behind who is actually taking the all important step of opening the message. This is called the open rate. Your open rate is low and either getting worse or not showing signs of improvement. Fear not, there are some reasons you may be unaware of and some ways to improve this metric.
Cause of Low Opening Rate/CTR and How to Improve It
The cause of low opening rate is usually a mix of marketing mistakes and technical issues. The good news here is that most of the marketing mistakes are things that you can fix immediately to bring your campaign back to life. Brand consultants Parker White identified six reasons for failing active campaigns and they involve a combination of design choices, content production/distribution techniques and audience segmentation issues. Here are recommendations for improving your open rate:
- Write better subject lines
- Improve content that is dreadful, boring to consume or difficult to read
- Write content that is ultra relevant to your audience
- Ensure images aren’t being blocked
- Stick to a sensible publishing schedule and don’t oversend emails
- Who is your audience? Find out and get better email lists with more qualified prospects/leads
Writing great calls to action within your content can’t be overstated. Make sure that your CTAs and messaging are useful, concise enough and clear enough to understand and take immediate action on. You have to set the agenda here. Quality links with detailed information beyond your email that walks the user through an experience that is memorable is how your focus will pay off for your team. Much of the focus here is on personalizing content. Keep going back to measure and track your click through rate based on the tips used above.
Sign 2. Your Site Traffic Isn’t Growing Despite Nominal CTR
Here is the second sign that your email strategy might be imploding on you. Your site traffic is not growing even though you have decent click-through rates from the metrics you tracked.
You just can’t seem to figure this one out. You have a nominal click-through rate but your website traffic still hasn’t grown. It hasn’t moved an inch in the upward direction according to website traffic metrics you are measuring. Now what? What could this data suggest? Here are some insights on improving site traffic.
Improving Site Traffic from Email Leads
Website traffic is one of the most important elements for small business seo so having a handle on some good SEO principles, tactics and strategies should also help email campaigns, which are driven by similar practices. Start producing professionally written and well-researched content that is optimized for user experiences across devices and that is visually appealing. It should be easy to digest and make declarations that your audience segment will care about. Quality images, video, links, banners, headlines, copywriting and email template design will go a long way. Craft your newsletter like a newsfeed with engaging teasers for blog posts, company news, press releases, articles from media, announcements, events, podcasts/interviews, product updates, etc. Smaller announcements and smaller content tidbits sent in between these large format regular updates should be sent as brief emails, as concise as possible with simple statements and a link with image or button. You can drive conversions with explicit personalization.
Sign 3. You Have a Higher Bounce Rate
You might be starting to notice a pattern in the data you are tracking for your email campaigns. You notice the third sign of an email campaign that is falling apart: a higher bounce rate. This is the percentage of subscribers in your email list who never received the message because it was immediately rejected or returned from the server. If your bounce rate is above 2 or 3 percent, then something could be wrong with your approach.
Use Better Email Sending Protocols and Engagement Tactics
There are several ways to improve your hard or soft bounce rates in your email campaigns. Here are some tips to improve your email campaign bounce rates:
- Keep code and content design and messaging simple and avoid spammy material or anything that could get flagged by email servers or spam filters including free email services or unverified domains
- Be vigilant about list quality and regularly maintain and cleanse your lists
- Maintain a regular sending schedule
- Be respectful of recipients and provide for considerations such as permissions, choice of communications/content types to subscribe, policy information, transparency in the use of information and opt outs/unsubscribe option.
Sign 4. You Have a High Rate of “Marked As Spam”
As we saw in previous examples, explicit personalization helps drive conversions so if you have a high rate of users marking email as spam, listen up. Email providers and browsers are becoming ever more scrutinous about emails that either look suspicious or seem to offer spam to their users. They have a reputation to uphold, but so do you. Plus everyone hates spam! Here are some ways to be less spammy.
How to Be Less Spammy in Emails
The above principles of content strategy, user design/experience and SEO will go a long way in improving this metric. These elements provide that one-on-one marketing type of experience users appreciate. However, some technical and IT experience also helps reinforce the marketing tactics with sound protocols. Make sure your domain is secure and verified and you are using professional email marketing software. Ensure all elements of content are useful and engaging and links are not spammy either.
Sign 5. You Have High Unsubscribe Rates and Users Unenroll
Sign number 5 is an important one. You have high unsubscribe rates. This is one of the worst signs and means armageddon for your email campaign if it doesn’t improve. You have high unsubscribe rates, which means that users are unenrolling. You might not get those particular subscribers back ever! But you must work from the place from which you are now. There are methods that you can use to improve this metric and get back on track with your email marketing campaign. Here are some ways to make sure more subscribers do not unenroll from your messaging list.
How to Keep Subscribers Coming Back
You need to get your email subscribers engaged in the content first by peaking their interest. Then keep them interested by maintaining your familiar formula and intriguing offerings. Set expectations for your campaign strategy, target and timelines. Revise your copy continually if needed during production. Send follow-up emails to your subscribers and be personal by asking for direct feedback. Becoming a trusted familiar source with utility for your users is one of the most important things you can do to maintain a good subscriber base with fan loyalty and brand advocacy. Get personal with your audience and let them know you are there for them and your offerings should reflect such an attitude.
Email Campaign Deterioration and Subsequent Improvement
Email marketing is one of the toughest games in the business of digital communications. The job of an email marketer may seem downright cumbersome and unrewarding, particularly when the results are not as fruitful as hoped. By following this article as a trustworthy guide for reference, your team should be able to turn that campaign around in a matter of just weeks and get back on track. The right mindset, motivation and plan in place is all that’s needed for a successful campaign.
In conclusion, if your email campaign is falling apart, you are making some errors in your strategy and approach. Remember to always consider your audience segmentation and their most typical response to your content. Maintain your lists and your production calendar for email. Analyze your systems, tools and information to avoid spam filtration from servers and use professional SEO methods for email content. Utilize all the resources at your disposal and make the investment in quality a priority for your digital messaging strategies.