Are You Making These 5 Mistakes In Your Email Newsletter?
Love it or hate it, email marketing is here to stay as an important part of nurturing your leads and selling your services. According to Hubspot, the standard open rate of an email is 20% and the clickthrough 7-8%. If you notice your rates are below average, check that you’re not making these five mistakes.
1. Not identifying yourself clearly and consistently.
“Who on earth is that??” Your reader says, squinting at your email. Unsubscribe, delete.
It happens when your identity isn’t consistent. The average reader signs up for dozens of newsletters a year, so they’re bound to forget who you are at some point.
Make sure the name in your “from” field and your sign-off are consistent with the name they see when they sign up for the newsletter.
If they signed up to receive news from Mad About Design, for instance, they’ll be expecting emails to pop up from “Mad About Design” — not from, say, Madeline Fieldman. People are forgetful.
Your email newsletter is an extension of your brand identity, so it should retain the same name, visuals, and tone as your website.
2. Looooong emails.
There’s a reason that productivity expert James Clear has more than a million subscribers to his email list: he adopts a 3-2-1 strategy where he lists 3 ideas, 2 quotes, and 1 question to reflect on. Simple, easy to digest, plenty of value.
When constructing your own emails, consider the value it offers your readers. Are you going on endlessly, only getting to the main point at the end? Or are you delivering value from the get-go?
Long emails are hard to digest, and require a lot of brainpower that your reader might not have when quickly skimming their inbox. If you have to, use these sparingly and with intention.
3. Not adding a call to action.
Every email should have an action that you want your reader to take. That could be clicking through to a landing page, downloading a freebie, or even just sharing the email with their friends if they find it useful. Having a call to action engages your reader and invests them in your brand just that little bit more.
In fact, effective emails should have at least 2-3 calls to action in the form of buttons or hyperlinks.
4. Not addressing a pain point.
Every launch or nurture email is a chance to sell. I don’t mean being salesy, but taking advantage of your reader’s brief attention to remind them why they signed up in the first place.
Treat launch or nurture emails as miniature landing pages. You wouldn’t go in guns blazing, would you? Most people opening your email aren’t even fully present. Half their attention is elsewhere — they’re on the train, idly checking their phone at work, waiting for someone in the car. It’s your job to warm them up and get their full attention by acknowledging their pain point.
Take the example of a coach trying to sell a course to new business owners. A sales email without addressing the pain point would probably open with a personal anecdote, features of the course, or the benefits. Meh.
If you warm up first with a couple of lines that acknowledge the business owner’s current struggles, like low cash flow or feeling burnt out, you’re more likely to get their attention.
Addressing a pain point not only increases the chances of them taking that call to action, it also positions you as someone who cares about their audience.
5. Making it all about yourself
Finally, emails shouldn’t be all about you. If an anecdote is required, open with that and then quickly move the narrative to the reader. People love stories, but they shouldn’t go on for too long — remember no one checks their inbox for fun.
When writing, consider what message you’re bringing across. Case in point: I had an insurance agent who would send me regular updates about bringing in a million dollars in revenue, going on her family on a ski trip to Switzerland, complete with grainy photos of her at gala dinners.
She probably thought she was being chummy and maintaining a relationship, but honestly? Her stories offered no value to me, the customer. Instead, they alienated me. Remember that with every action you take, you’re either bringing your brand closer to your audience or moving further away from them. There is no neutral action, so consider each line of an email carefully.
Need someone to help you create an effective nurture or launch email sequence? Let’s have a chat about how I can help take this off your plate.
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the author
Hi, I’m Melody! I help women-led brands make money with copy that reflects their true brand personality and speaks directly to their audience’s hearts.
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