No, I don’t mean that people don’t open MY emails, hello-you’re reading this aren’t you? No, it’s just that I hear this complaint about a 100 times a day in my line of work. From frustrated clients, from business owners and even from my own dear Mother!
Here’s why this is happening and what to do about it…
Less About You
The first big mistake people make in their emails is that it’s about THEM. If I leave this earth teaching one thing about marketing to humans, it’s going to be to stop talking about themselves. It’s NOT about you. It’s about them. And what do people care most about? What is hurting them. That’s right, their pain. So when you write about their pain as opposed to your products and your services and your preferences, well-guess what? They open your emails.
Too Much Of a Good Thing
A recent research by Adobe showed that 45% of respondents said that the most annoying thing about emails were brands that were emailing them too often. Honestly, my clients usually go the other way. I have to convince them to send at least one a week to their prospects. Either in the form of a personal follow up email or a newsletter. But there is that fine line of what’s too much? Now if the content of the email is engaging, too much shouldn’t matter. Alternately, if there’s total brand love, there’s a higher tolerance but too much of a good thing is always too much, even with ice cream!
Less Selling More Info
Again, research shows us that when your emails are less about promotions and more about providing information (about their pain, of course!), your emails get opened. 39% of respondents said that it would be the one thing they could change about emails they get from brands.
I am Unique
Lastly, the way to get your emails to be opened is if you personalize them as much as possible. 27% of respondents wanted emails that were crafted to meet their unique needs. For smaller businesses that don’t have the data crunching power of large CRM programs, this usually means very targeted marketing that speaks to the industry’s specific pain points, using their language.
So the next time your emails get a big fat silence on the other end, consider the above factors and re-write that sucker so that you will finally get someone on the other end to hit reply!
Want to reposition your messaging to grow your leads? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, watch me on YouTubeor connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk
