11 Reasons Why Your Email Marketing Campaign Is Screwed

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I won’t even begin to talk about how important list building is, because it is probably a topic that has been talked to death. But not building a proper list can affect your business quite severely. Social media might be the new in thing these days, but having your subscriber’s email in your autoresponder allows you to have a direct line of communication. It also allows you to build deeper trust with them. As always, if you are not proving yourself beneficial to their success/ providing relevant quality content then you will still lose them even if they are subscribed to your list.

Killer content is good but that doesn’t mean readers will sign up in the thousands. Your email marketing campaign might be screwed up but let’s visit some important reasons why this might be happening.

1. Are you consistent enough with quality content?

In other word, do people trust what you write? Is the quality consistently good enough to compel readers to subscribe and join the club? Great content should be present on both your blogs and emails newsletter.

2. Is the salesperson in you taking your over?

Generally people hate being sold to. I tend to run away from any salesperson in a shopping mall waiting to pounce on me and start their half an hour talk about why their product is the best. I much prefer someone educating me about the pros and cons of a product and just at that moment tell me why it is worth getting that product. Similarly, on your email list get them into the “mood” by educating them about a specific issue related to the product you want to sell.

3. Your Newsletter Is Kind of Cold

It is difficult to be as warm and welcoming on your newsletter compared to meeting a client in real life but that doesn’t mean you can’t greet them or make your subscribers feel at home. Welcome them in your company and thank them for subscribing. Go further by allowing them to contact you personally through email or Twitter. Keep doing this throughout your newsletters and allow them to ask questions and give feedback. If you are wondering if anyone reads your emails, this is one of many ways you can tell.

4. Your Emails Are Heading Into The Spambox

This is one of the first few things I tell my subscribers to do – whitelist emails from me. Otherwise it will all just be a waste of time. Be careful not to make your newsletters too spammy either. It will also end up in the wrong place. Sometimes email providers like Hotmail are notorious for spamming IM related messages, so if you can’t find their spam filter tell your readers to whitelist them as early as possible.

5. Your Subject Heading Is Not Very Enticing

Writing headlines don’t have to get too technical. Sometimes short simple attention grabbing ones are good enough. I’ve noticed some internet marketers sending emails with the subject heading “Your Clickbank Commissions”. Now that’s really enticing, although the email is nothing but a ploy to make me go through a sales page, the “clickbank commissions part is enticing enough for me to click through it.I’m not saying you should do things like that but sometimes the best way to grab a person’s attention over something so mundane and repetitive like traffic generation is to write things like “How I Got 29778 visitors in one day” Here we have the figure and the need to satisfy one of the most sought after solution – traffic.

6. Long Subject Headings

I get it, some might like long headings but headings that are short, to the point and have specific information works better unless you have something really unique to say just like in the previous example.

7. You’ve Not Delivering What You Promise

I think this is the most important thing apart from having killer content. I’m sure you must have seen pop-ups or subscription boxes promising you what you will get for signing up but there are times when you have to examine if you are on course with what you promise to give your subscribers. If you’ve gone off course, then be sure to correct it and be specific with your newsletter. Don’t try to add too much and generalized your topics too much. Although information overload is a good thing but not delivering the promises as an owner of a business will make your list less effective.

8. Focus On Your Readers

If you are like all the other internet marketers who aim to sell their top selling products, then you should skip this one and go to the next one. There are some email lists that I’ve signed up before that are just too sale-sy for my taste. I quickly unsubscribe from them and avoid them from spamming my emails further.
If you focus on meeting your readers’ needs, i.e addressing the main reason why they sign up, providing tools or solutions to their problems, educate them tirelessly and offering assistance to them, word of mouth will spread and it really doesn’t take much to sell things once you’ve reached this stage. Doing this will build trust over time but you are also building a base of customers who will be loyal to you and they are your assets.

9. A Weak Call To Action

Whenever you want to coax people to subscribe to your list or get a product, call to actions are important. If your call to action sounds like “You can now download my free ebook here” instead of “Grab my ebook now and get started” then you ought to change it to the latter. Most people are lazy to want to do anything even though things can be free for the taking. Give them that added push for them to sign up.

10. Bribe Your Readers / Lead Magnet

Call it either, but regardless this is one of the best ways to get people to sign up to your newsletter. There are already millions of newsletters around, this one way to bypass all that mediocrity and be a little more unique. Of course, most average blogs have free PDF ebooks to giveaway as soon as they sign up but if your free ebook addresses a concern or a problem SPECIFICALLY then make sure it’s so well focused that it targets the right people to sign up.

11. Too many emails

I have more than enough lists to read in a day, I don’t need to see someone sending me an email daily just because they feel like “keeping in touch”. Although it’s nice to communicate with your subscribers frequently, doing it too often like daily can make your subscribers annoyed. I much prefer people send me an email once weekly or at most twice.

This might just be my personal preference but you don’t have to constantly send emails to your readers. Just make sure that when you send it to them, it has all the necessary information to keep them interested and add a bonus that they will thank you for.

Most people are cynics when subscribing to lists for fear that they will be bombarded with a barrage of spammy sales emails. But there is always a place to fill even in this situation. Be that unique voice that fills the gaps that others can’t fill. Don’t start selling. Start caring for your subscribers. Be the best help you can to them and they will repay you through more referrals and a better business.

To find out more about email marketing from a similar post, check out these resources:

• The Number One Blog Monetization Method
• One More Method To Build Your list

 

Tagged as: email marketing campaign tips, email marketing list, list building, list building tips