Getting to the Root of Ineffective Marketed Emails

1.6K

Key takeaways

• Diagnose failing email campaigns by reviewing four areas: customer lifecycle fit, customer–business relationship, technical delivery and goal setting.
• Map each email to a lifecycle stage (welcome, re‑engagement, final chance) so messages feel intentional and connected.
• Improve the customer–business relationship by seeing campaigns from the customer’s perspective and simplifying their path to conversion.
• Fix controllable technical issues (templates, image rendering) through disciplined A/B testing before sending.
• Set realistic, partitioned goals (e.g. list growth or conversion lift), start small and monitor successes and failures to iterate.

Introduction

If there’s one thing most businesses can’t stand, it’s investing in something that should be a major hit with consumers, but only ends up fizzling out or falling flat on its face. Unfortunately, email marketing campaigns aren’t exempt from this reality. The truth of the matter is that just because connecting with consumers via the inbox can be the most powerful tool in your digital marketing arsenal, doesn’t always mean it’s a slam dunk. To help get things back on track, let’s diagnosis the different ailments found in many ineffective marketed emails. From here, you’ll have everything you need to install a successful and productive campaign that will have your target customers eagerly waiting for more.

Failing to Understand the Customer Lifecycle

The first place to start dissecting your email content comes in the form of gauging your understanding of the role of these marketed messages within the consumer lifecycle. As the experts at the London School of Marketing explain, everything from the inviting welcome email sent out to new subscribers to the “final chance” outreach fired off to long dormant contact list members, has a spot in your planning process. Without the ability to think several steps ahead and tie your content together across these various stages, it’s hard not to have a message that comes off as incomplete or flat out disjointed.

Lacking an Understanding of the Customer-Business Relationship

Similarly, having an understanding of what’s expected between your brand and the consumers making up your contact list also matters when gauging the successes and failures of an inbox campaign. After all, as Karol Krol of Business 2 Community explains, an inability to comprehend the particulars of this relationship creates a gap between the message held within your emails and the person reading it at home or in the office that’s not easily overcome.

If you don’t want to ruin this relationship, Krol suggests stepping into the shoes of your consumers for a little bit and basing your creative development decisions off of this introspection. From keying in on seasonal events to simplifying the purchasing process once your viewers hit your landing pages, spending some time learning about the intricacies of the customer-business relationship via email marketing can go a long way toward regaining a successful campaign outlook.

Overcoming Technical Barriers

One you’re done tying up these conceptual loose ends, it’s time to shift your gaze toward the technical side of email marketing. In his look at the myriad technical difficulties afflicting modern email campaigns, Ian McGrath of iMedia Connection points out that sometimes these issues simply aren’t in your control. For instance, if you’re based out of a country that’s notorious for spam operations, it’s hard to avoid getting caught up in the wide-ranging nets cast by email service providers.

However, for the technical difficulties that do reside within your grasp, like shoddy templates and images that render incorrectly, there’s one surefire way to beat these problems for good – constant testing. It might not be the most exciting answer to this dilemma, but when facing down a campaign that’s sinking thanks to technical mishaps, it’s hard to deny the power of A/B testing. Naturally, you’ll spend a decent amount of time getting into the swing of things, but once you see the results of your hard work come to life in the form of technically sound and engaging emails, you’ll never question again that testing your content before it goes live is the right call.

Setting Appropriate Goals

Finally, it’s always important to set realistic goals when developing your email content and campaigns. Obviously, everyone wants to hit a home run in the inbox on their first try, but the reality of the situation is that starting off small and working your way up is often the best course of action for long term success. In his look at this method of cleaning up a flagging campaign, Ryan Pinkham, also of Business 2 Community, suggests honing in on a specific area and building off of these partitioned goals.

Whether it’s aiming for a raw increase in contact list numbers, or building a strategy that boosts conversions with your current audience, setting appropriate goals and being diligent when it comes to monitoring your successes and failures goes a long way toward righting the ship. When combined with the rest of what you’ve learned, there’s no doubt that this approach will help you get to the root of ineffective emails and lay a foundation on which you can build moving forward. 

FAQ