There is nothing more important than having functioning and safe business emails. One might argue that emails might become a thing of the past with messaging apps and social media platforms adjusting to business needs and creating special features for them to communicate to clients but it seems that email is still on top of the list for communication and lead generation with clients and prospects.
This is where the problems rise. Much like anything cloud based, emails have their fair share of disadvantages and downtimes.
Email security is critical in the sense that it contains all of the valuable and useful information of its users. Email services can be hacked, which can harm users, their information, and their privacy. In this article, we’ll go through some of the most popular email marketing problems which can be solved by email protection.
- Problems With Email Deliverability
- Low Open Rates Indicate a Problem With Your Emails
- Address the Email Marketing Challenge of Low Conversion Rates
- Email Subscribe Rate Failing to Gain Momentum
- No one’s clicking the links in my emails
- High SPAM Complaints
1- Problems With Email Deliverability
The content of your email doesn’t make a lot of difference to your brand if your subscribers don’t actually see it. This is why you need to take action to avoid high bounce rates.
The bounce rate is how often your emails don’t reach the recipients’ inboxes. This always occurs when you send messages to invalid email addresses. Unfortunately, if you keep sending emails to invalid addresses, your bounce rate will rise, which could lead to being considered a spammer. As a result, fewer emails will be delivered.
Avoid this problem by verifying the addresses of all your subscribers before submitting content. This simple step goes a long way.
Solution: Verify your domain
If you are serious about email marketing, you should be sending emails from your own domain. You might be tempted to use the free email address provided by Gmail or Yahoo. But this will negatively impact your deliverability.
ISPs will be suspicious of sending bulk emails from these free email addresses. They are unable to authenticate the domain and often mark them as spam.
The solution is to use your own validated domain. Purchasing a domain is simple and inexpensive. And it’s pretty much needed if you run a website. It’s just as easy to set up email on your domain once you have it.
After completing these two steps, the next step is to verify your domain on the email marketing platform. Typically, this will require you to update the DNS records on your website, and your email marketing platform will provide details on how to do it. DKIM, DMARC, and SPF records are standards that ensure the domain is safe and unhackable.
2- Low Open Rates Indicate a Problem With Your Emails
There can be many reasons why you are seeing low open rates for your email. Open rates science is not precise, but nevertheless it is a valued indicator of how your efforts are being perceived. You could be triggering Spam alerts with your subject lines or using a negative connotation that is not encouraging your recipients to actively check your email contents.
Solution: Segment your list
It doesn’t matter how catchy your subject line is if your audience isn’t interested in the topic. And if you’re sending mass emails to a vast list, each message is likely to resonate with just a small portion of the recipients.
That is why segmentation is such an effective tool in the toolbox of every email marketer. It enables you to organize contacts based on common interests or demographics. You can effectively segment your audience. There are several options depending on the industry. Other factors include place, gender, and age.
3- Address the Email Marketing Challenge of Low Conversion Rates
The more time you spend maintaining a mailing list, the more subscribers you’ll lose. But it’s not only the ones that unsubscribe. Because the issue is that subscribers can lose interest in hearing from you over time. Instead of unsubscribing, they will automatically delete your email. Or, even worse, report it as spam.
Solution: Clean your mailing list
It’s a smart idea to delete these subscribers to save your deliverability and improve interaction. It’s time for them to leave if they haven’t opened a single email from you in the last three to six months.
A re-engagement campaign is a good place to start. This is where you inquire if your inactive subscribers still want to hear from you. It gives them one last chance to express their interest in you. A smaller list of more engaged subscribers would benefit the company more than a larger list of less engaged subscribers.
4- Email Subscribe Rate Failing to Gain Momentum
To grow a business mainly means to grow the audience. The more people you have in your market, the more customers you will attract.
And one of the most effective ways to create an audience of potential customers is to expand your mailing list. It’s crucial because it’s data you own.
However, attracting the first few hundred subscribers can be challenging when you’re just starting out.
Solution #1: Use psychology in your opt-in forms
A website user is connected to your mailing list through your sign-up form. Using persuasion principles will help with encouraging users to sign up. There are numerous ways to incorporate customer psychology in your marketing.
Here are some that work well for signup forms:
- Reciprocity – if you offer something, you’re more likely to get something in return. So, if they sign up for your mailing list, give them a special discount or a free download.
- Social proof – people are influenced by the opinions and behavior of others, especially those like them.
- Exclusivity – Instead of requesting that visitors sign up for a newsletter, invite them to join an exclusive group.
Solution #2: Promote your newsletter on other channels
You can use your website to grow your mailing list in a variety of ways. But there are several dozen more. If getting more subscribers is your top priority, make this the key CTA on your brand’s Facebook profile, as well as in your Instagram and Twitter bios.
Repurposing the content in your email campaigns for social media channels is another choice. Show your followers the awesome content they’ll get if they sign up for your newsletters in the future. This strategy also works well on LinkedIn if you’re in the B2B space.
5- No one’s clicking the links in my emails
Along with open rate, another important success metric in email marketing is click rate. The aim of most email campaigns is to get your subscribers to visit your website and make a purchase or request a service.
They must, however, click on the links in your email for this to happen. As a result, if your click rates are decreasing, it will have a negative effect on your broader business objectives.
Solution #1: Personalise your email
Falling click rates, like declining open rates, are another indication that your subscribers are losing interest in your content. When content is personalized, however, interest levels rise.
Using your subscriber’s name in the subject line is an easy way to add personalization to your emails. It can also be as complex as tailoring content to each subscriber’s specific tastes or behaviors.
Solution #2: Optimise your CTAs
A CTA, or call to action, instructs readers about what they should do next. It is typically displayed as a button or a text link. CTAs in emails guide recipients to a specific landing page on your website.
As a result, the more successful your CTAs are, the higher your click rate.
According to Adestra, the rate of emails opened on mobile was 62 percent in March 2019. Thus, making sure your emails are mobile-friendly should be top priority.
The phrases “order now,” “press here,” and “learn more” are tested and approved.
Also, keep the number of CTAs in your email to a minimum. You might believe that adding more links will increase your click rate because there will be more links to click on. This technique works best when combined with segmentation.
6- High SPAM Complaints
It doesn’t look good for future campaigns if the first email you send goes straight to the spam folder. There are a few things you can do to get your emails added to the list of “safe senders.”
Solution: Set up double opt-in or send a welcome email
The first is to set up a double opt-in system. New subscribers must confirm their subscription by clicking on a link emailed to them seconds after signing up. They’ll be expecting the email and will, in most cases, go straight to their inbox to finish the process.
Today users know to search their spam folder if an email they expect isn’t in their inbox.
These activities demonstrate to ISPs that your emails are trustworthy, ensuring that future campaigns reach inboxes.
Welcome emails may be used in a similar way. When signing up for a mailing list, 74% of customers expect to receive a welcome text. So if it’s not in their inbox, they’ll think something is wrong. These emails also help indicate that future deliverability progress will be assured.
Conclusion
There are no problems without solutions. Maintaining a clean list and attracting new subscribers requires time and effort. Building a good sender reputation and increasing email deliverability takes time.
However, if you try to implement these solutions, you’ll be on your way to long-term success.
