You anticipated a killing. You’ve built up a small but, you believe, good quality email marketing list. The first few, low level, campaigns went as well as you expected, and you learnt a lot from them; enough, you feel, to try something special. The offer was one you’d been planning for ages, one destined to set up your business. Yet it was a failure in your eyes, hardly better than the previous ones.
If it’s any comfort, we’ve all been there.
You probably will be wondering if email marketing is not all it’s been built up to be, or whether it was an error on your behalf. Perhaps it’s more difficult than you thought.
Let’s look at what might have happened.
1/ Targeting means leaving some off the list
Just because you have a small email marketing list does not mean you should send everyone the email. To get good returns you need to focus your campaign on those who might want to buy. Some would probably already have one, others might be after something in blue. There are some who, critically, might not want one. You need to target your campaigns.
2/ What about the design of the email
You will have had a selection of email marketing templates to choose from. You checked through them all and came across one that stood out. You thought it perfect. However, what you like is of no consequence. You probably didn’t pick one that appealed to all of those you sent it to. No design is that good.
3/ There are so many variables
You will have limited information on, for instance, the times that your subscribers prefer to receive email. You can guess that a B2B one might not be best received at 9.30 Monday morning. There is never one single time perfect for all on B2C. Then there’s the gap between the previous marketing email and your big one; too long or too short?
4/ What about support
Don’t look at email marketing on its own. Mention the offer to come on the website, in the newsletter, and on any interface between you and a subscriber. Build anticipation. Get them excited.
5/ Learn from you campaign
Accept that, if you got a slightly better return on your big campaign compared to the previous one, you are doing well. Results take time to build as you need to gain information from each. A higher click-through rate shows that you got their attention. A low level of unsubscribes shows that your subscribers still trust you are worth sticking with. A low open rate can be viewed more positively than a high one. You can, after a suitable period, resend the email with a different Subject Line. You will then see what attracts different subscribers.
Every email marketing campaign provides you with data on the subscribers to your email marketing list. As your information level increases it should modify how you design and present your campaigns. You should improve steadily, so don’t expect a great increase from one campaign to the next.
