Surprising Ways Your Email List May Be Reducing Your Email Open Rate
“Email marketing is dead!”
How many times have you heard that? And how many of those shouts have become true so far?
Chances are, you answered “many” to the first question and “none” to the second.
Here’s the problem with many marketers.
They spend hours putting together a campaign. But because they ignore the basics, their email open rate is terrible. And rather than fixing the problem, they find it easier to blame a type of marketing they think is outdated.
But how do you know what’s causing your open rates to drop? Well, chances are there probably isn’t a single answer to that question. But one surprising reason might be…
… your email list.
You know, the same list you’ve been told to build by every guru on the internet.
What does that mean, then? Should you give up on building an audience and hope your rates will magically increase?
Not quite. But you need to take action before it’s too late for your marketing team.
Here are some surprising ways your email list may reduce your open rate and what you can do about it.
What’s the Average Email Open Rate?
The average email open rate depends on your industry. But generally, the percentage ranges between 19% and 26%.
Electronics (19%), business (20%), and software (20%) tend to have the lowest email open rates.
On the other hand, manufacturing (23%), education (25%), and real estate (26%) have the highest percentage of users opening their emails.
Even with a ‘good’ open rate, you can still see that most users do not engage with emails. And here’s the harsh truth…
Your Email List Might Be the Problem.
All too often, marketers set up an email list and forget about it. The only important metric is how many users are subscribed. Whether or not they’re engaged in the content they’re sending doesn’t matter.
Thinking only subscribers matter is a huge mistake. Because with email lists, quality is more important than quality.
Are you worried that your email list is affecting your open rates negatively, but not sure how? Below are seven surprising ways.
The Emails on Your List Aren’t Verified
Besides the obvious problem that your emails aren’t delivered to unverified addresses, keeping invalid emails causes bigger issues.
If users don’t open your emails, servers may consider you spam. As a result, you’ll end up in the junk boxes of engaged subscribers. They are then less likely to read your emails, leading to a vicious downward spiral.
You Don’t Segment Your Email Lists
Do you send every email to everyone on your contact list?
Big mistake.
Good email open rates depend on users engaging with the content they’re interested in. Even if you’re in the narrowest niche imaginable, your users will still have varying interests.
Not segmenting your email list makes your content more generic and dilutes your messaging. Both of these will impact your future campaign successes.
Your Efforts to Engage Disengaged Users Are Feeble
Even though they’ve already shown no interest in them, Sending the same email to disengaged users is a losing strategy. Think of this scenario similar to constantly texting someone who won’t respond – it’s pointless.
Like unverified emails, sending unanswered emails to verified accounts will increase your chances of ending up in spam folders.
If you want to engage disengaged users, you need to use a mixture of analytics and one-to-one feedback.
You Make Unsubscribing Difficult
If your users can’t unsubscribe, they might change their minds and start engaging with you one day.
Right?
Wrong.
If you make unsubscribing difficult, your audience will start to dislike you even more. And rather than suddenly engaging with you, you’re probably going to end up on the user’s block list.
When servers pick up on consumers blacklisting you, they will likely punish you in return too.
Your List Isn’t Giving You Accurate Data
Any successful marketing campaign must utilize high-quality data. Email marketing is no different. Your audience is already telling you what they want, but you must find a way to listen.
If you don’t have accurate data for your email list, creating content that provides value is difficult. Moreover, you won’t have any way of understanding what is and isn’t working with your current marketing.
Unless you’re lucky, campaigns without data aren’t going to receive a great deal of engagement.
You’re Spending Too Much Money on a Bigger-Than-Needed Email List
As your email list grows, you’ll pay more money to maintain it. And if you’ve got many users not engaging with your content, you also have serious problems to deal with.
Keeping users that aren’t engaging with your content works the same as not deleting people you haven’t spoken to for 10 years on Facebook. The overall number may look impressive, but ultimately it means nothing.
Spending money on an email list that doesn’t engage with your content stops you from providing value to those who love you.
Your Subscribers Were Only There for the Freebies
Have you ever tried campaigns where you offer a free eBook, template, or similar to attract new subscribers? Good on you, because these work.
But many only give you their address for the free content. Once they have these, they’re not going to care about you – unless you keep providing value.
Sending free content is fine, but make sure you don’t overdo it. Otherwise, you’ll only build a database of one-time engagers.
How to Increase Your Open Rate
There are a variety of ways you can increase your email open rate. Some will require going through your email list; others are sensible marketing practices.
Here are some of the best options that work regardless of your budget.
Don’t Mail Merge
‘Noreply’ emails are okay for purchase confirmations. They are not okay for almost everything else.
Generic emails are impersonal and give off the impression that you don’t care about your customers. And if users want to respond with feedback, they’re going to be annoyed that they can’t.
To improve your email rate, take more time to think about how you send your emails. And instead of doing a single blast and forgetting about everything, tailor based on the user’s interests.
Make sure you send from a real person’s email address, too, and that they can also contact you.
Verify the Emails on Your Subscriber List
Before planning your next email campaign:
- Go through your current subscriber list.
- Go through each of them and make sure they’re verified.
- If you find any invalid addresses, get rid of them.
To verify your email list, you can use validation tools. When looking for one, consider their real-time insight capabilities.
You should also think about the app’s processing speed and reporting.
Once you’ve deleted every outdated email on your subscriber list, your average email open rate will increase instantly. Why? Because a higher percentage of users will receive your emails.
Personalize Your Emails
To create successful email campaigns, your audience’s needs must come first. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 90% of the best-performing B2B content marketing strategies do well because they meet these.
And one of your audience’s needs is to feel like they a) are human and b) interacting with a human.
Personalization is a great way to improve your email open rates. Besides sharing interesting content, you should also address them by their names. Other personalization ideas include dedicated landing pages and considering where they live.
Do Not Send Unless You’re Confident You’re Providing Value
Nobody wants to read emails that offer nothing to them.
Before sending every email:
- Ask what you hope to achieve from it.
- Ask whether your audience is demanding this content. If they are, great – send.
- If not, go back and tweak things until you can answer yes.
Segment Your Email Lists
Segmenting your email lists is a powerful way to provide more value without losing your reach. You will be able to create more precise messaging and improve open rates by providing more relevant content.
To segment your email lists, it’s a good idea to create different customer personas. You also need to use data because without this, you can’t divide users accordingly.
There is no limit on how many email segments you can or should create. Make this decision based on your business’ size and goals.
Engage New Subscribers Straight Away
Have you got a welcome pack for your new subscribers?
If so, great–you can skip to the next section.
If not, your email open rate will suffer in the long-term.
The best time to engage customers is when they have just signed up for your newsletter. They want to hear from you and are interested in what you can offer them.
Set up automated systems that send a welcome email for new sign-ups, and provide some kind of value where possible too. They will get a taste of what’s to come and look out for you in their inbox.
Don’t Let Your Email Marketing Efforts Suffer
Improving your email open rate doesn’t need to be a challenge. And often, the key to doing so is more obvious than you think.
You must maintain your email list, just like you would with all other areas of your business. If you group all your subscribers as one and don’t remove invalid email addresses, your open rate will suffer.
Segment your customers, trim down your list and provide value. Then, your open and clickthrough rates will increase.
Are you curious to see how we can help with your email verification process? Contact us to find out more.
