Despite how much time you spend growing your email list and designing the perfect email, there’s always a chance your email marketing campaigns might fall short of expectations. Both warm email outreach and cold email outreach can fail for a number of reasons. However, there are a few common factors that can impact both warm and cold marketing efforts. If you’re struggling to see good results with your email campaign, review these factors and make adjustments!
You Send Generic Emails
While templated, generic messaging is easier to assemble for email marketing campaigns, the shotgun outreach approach to these emails can often be ineffective. Because you’re sending the same email to every person, these emails might not address audience needs or apply to different demographics, which can lead to lower open rates and engagement with your emails. Worse, they might come across as spam, which means your emails could end up in junk or spam folders.
Solution: Personalize Your Emails
Instead of shotgun outreach, try sniper outreach. With this email marketing tactic, you send unique, personalized messaging to every person on your email list. Of course, this may not be ideal if your email list is large since building a custom email for every person on the list would take considerable time. In such a case, try audience segmentation. By grouping your email list into segments based on audience demographics like age, income level, job type, geolocation, or personal interest, you can personalize email messaging to a specific audience and save time.
You’re Contacting the Wrong People
If you’re contacting someone who’s not interested in receiving cold emails or who’s tried to opt out of receiving your emails, not only can this leave a bad impression of your brand, but it can potentially get you blacklisted as well. While this is less of a concern with warm email campaigns —because those recipients chose to sign up for your mailing list—you still want to make sure you’re reaching the right people. It’s hard to see results from an email campaign if you’re sending emails to an address with a typo or that’s been deactivated.
Solution: Audit Your Email List
Audit your email campaigns regularly so you can update your customer relationship management (CRM) database with the most current contact information for your audience. Having the correct CRM data is crucial to effectively generate leads and run effective marketing campaigns. Try to conduct this audit every six to 12 months for maximum effectiveness. Additionally, you might look into sending end-of-year surveys to get user feedback regarding the value of your emails, as well as review and update the visibility of any “Unsubscribe” links in the emails you’re creating.
Your Content Isn’t Engaging
Whether your email marketing campaign is warm or cold, your outreach efforts won’t go far if your target demographic doesn’t like your content. If email subject lines are boring or irrelevant, you’ll see decreased clicks and open rates. If your messaging is too long or doesn’t provide value, your audience may route your emails to a junk folder or opt out of email correspondence entirely. And if you offer bad content experiences with your emails—such as broken links, missing images, and poor mobile display—it’s going to be difficult for anyone to engage with your content.
Solution: Create Skimmable Emails
The average user spends around 12 seconds or less reading a brand email, which means you need to communicate your message quickly and effectively. Limit subject lines to no more than 9 words or 60 characters, keep the body copy between 50 and 125 words, and be sure to end with a strong call to action. If you’re not sure what subject lines, messaging, or designs work best for email outreach, set up A/B testing to figure out what your target demographic responds to.
Your Frequency Is Inconsistent
Sticking to a consistent email marketing schedule is key to maintaining brand trust and seeing results with your email outreach. If you’re inconsistent with email frequency, your contacts may start to disengage with your brand. But if you send too many emails each week, your contacts may view your email efforts as spam. There are also laws that you need to comply with—like the CAN-SPAM Act—to avoid fines and penalties when it comes to email frequency.
Solution: Set an Email Schedule
Outside of A/B testing to see how recipients engage with your current email frequency, one way to find a more consistent flow is with an email preference center. Similar to “Unsubscribe” links, you can include this in your brand emails, giving recipients the ability to customize email frequency. Additionally, you might consider using an email drip campaign to build ongoing relationships with your contacts. Drip marketing is an automated email process that sends contacts on an email list a pre-written message based on user action, such as signing up for a newsletter, buying a product, abandoning an online shopping cart, attending an event, and more.
Struggling to connect with customers over email? Hurrdat Marketing offers email marketing services that can help you reach your target audience. Contact us to learn more!
