Email communication is one of the most effective marketing channels to grow your audience, nurture business leads, drive sales and more.
But it’s frustrating to email marketers when their email campaigns turn out ineffective. Have you ever wondered why your email marketing campaign is failing?
Let’s take a look at the 8 common signs of why your email marketing strategy fails and what you can do to prevent that.
1. Mailing from a free email account
Do you send email campaigns from your free email account?
This may sound strange but more businesses do this than you’d believe. There are many reasons you shouldn’t be doing this. For instance, bulk emails sent from a free email service provider are more likely to fall in the spam folder. Also, customers value emails from business domains more highly than they value emails with free Gmail or Yahoo domains.
Do this:
First get a business domain and set up an email account from where to send your emails. Unless you have only a handful of subscribers, make sure you use a service to send out emails.
Use a professional email service provider (ESP) to send your emails. An ESP does a great deal more than just send your emails. They let you A/B test, help you follow best practices, provide you with in-depth analytics and more.
The other alternative is that you can set up your own email infrastructure that will do the same. Some businesses do it, but most prefer using the services of an ESP because an ESP is a specialist at that.
2. Sending emails to a bad email address
This mistake can lead to terrible results.
For instance, if you are sending a coupon code or discount as a method of gaining email subscribers, you should thoroughly recheck your subscribers email list.
It’d be unfortunate when your emails don’t reach your subscribers just because their email address isn’t verified. They would lose a great opportunity to grab a great deal and you’d miss business.
The email addresses on your mailing list can be wrong for a number of reasons. Maybe the subscriber submitted the wrong address when signing up or the email address turned invalid some time back.
Do this:
An estimated 22% of email addresses turn invalid every year. That’s why you should regularly clean your email list to maintain list hygiene. Share on X
Validate your email list before sending it. This will help prevent email bounce and protect your sender reputation score. There are professional email list cleaning services that verify email addresses. Here are the top bulk email verification and validation services compared for your reference.
3. Using weak email subject lines
After all the efforts you’ve put into building your mailing lists, creating special offers, and crafting a wonderful email campaign, you don’t want subscribers to delete your email without reading it, right?
A weak subject line can sound boring and make subscribers want to avoid your email. Worse, if you use cheesy subject lines, your emails could be pushed into the spam folder too.
Do this:
Create a killer subject line that grabs the reader’s attention without sounding too pushy.
Take some time to craft creative subject lines that hit your readers’ inboxes without wasting your budget and precious time. Use A/B tests to see what’s working best for you.
And don’t forget this:
- Keep your subject simple and to the point
- Eliminate filler words
- Make it captivating – people should want to read more
4. Not using a clear, strong call-to-action.
If your emails are being opened, but your readers aren’t doing what you want them to do, the fault likely lies with a poor call-to-action (CTA). You may read more about the importance of CTA here.
Do this:
Every engagement with prospects should have one goal: making the prospect take the action you want them to take.
Design your email context such that your email readers take the desired action towards the outcome you hope to achieve.
And make sure you use only one CTA per email. Multiple CTAs will only confuse your readers.
5. Not using email segmentation
If you’re not segmenting your email list you are missing a great opportunity.
Analysis shows that segmented campaigns perform better and increase click-through rates more than what you’re currently seeing with your unsegmented list.
Do this:
You can segment your subscriber list on a wide range of parameters. In fact, you can segment the same list in multiple ways and use it per the occasion and needs.
Let’s say you run a small ecommerce store where you sell tees. One way you can segment your list is their past purchase history. You can send them some loyalty program membership. The other way to segment is on the basis of geographical location of subscribers. That way, you can send them different emails that will resonate with the season there and help them make better decisions.
6. Not meeting reader expectations
You want to constantly keep checking how you’re doing and finding out newer ways to delight your readers.
For example, incorrect email frequency, going off the topic or not keeping your brand voice in mind can push your readers to unsubscribe from your email list.
Do this:
Make sure to have the below points in mind:
- Use professional and respectful language
- Check spelling and grammar errors
- Avoid lots of images (unless your product or service is heavily visual, for instance a tour operator)
- Avoid making claims that cannot be substantiated
- Focus on the value you can provide your customers
7. Not optimising for mobile
As you already know, mobile-friendly design is no longer just nice to have, it’s a must-have for any email campaign. Your emails fail when they aren’t mobile-friendly.
Nowadays the opening rate of emails on mobile has increased by 68%. So if your emails aren’t mobile optimised, you are missing a golden opportunity for your business.
Do this:
Optimising your emails for mobile is easier than before. But when you optimize, be sure to deliver a great reading experience.
That means you’ll want to avoid awkward fonts or paragraphs that are too long. Beyond that, here’s what you can do:
- Make preheader text more appealing for readers to open
- Keep your email content short and concise by using bulleted lists, short paragraphs, etc.
- Place the call to action where it’s clearly visible
8 . Directing to bad landing pages
One of the reasons email marketing campaigns fail is the landing pages you’re sending your recipients to upon clicking.
The worst is, of course, the page is not found or doesn’t exist. The next problem is if the content is not helpful or your site design isn’t appealing.
Do this:
Remember the objective of your landing page is to guide your subscribers to take the next action and thereby lead them further in your sales funnel.
Make sure your landing page has a great design. It should be user-friendly. Any information your users might be looking for should be easily available. For example, if you sell some nutritional supplements, your landing page should mention the approvals and the statutory stuff to build confidence.
Finally, be sure to keep your design intuitive. Don’t make users work hard to find what they want.
Conclusion
We have just covered the top reasons why your email campaigns can go wrong and what you can do about it.
Begin by using a good email service provider. Next, keep your mailing list clean. Also, be sure to use strong subject lines and craft a strong CTA. Moreover, you should use list segmentation to deliver more personalized messages and meet reader expectations. And don’t forget to optimize for mobile phones and designing great landing pages.
By understanding your subscribers and making their life easier is the way to growth.
The best way to make your email marketing campaign successful is to avoid the above mistakes and get your readers to open your email and convert them to leads.
Why not tell us what other things can make your email campaign go wrong?
