Email Marketing – Getting Opened

I noticed a pattern of behavior in my use of email that I wanted to share with you, and some thoughts on correcting it.

Let me start my sharing a little information about my email use.  I have several email accounts, from the business specific accounts to the general use account that I give out to anyone (expecting to get spammed).  I have accounts just for twitter, linkedIn, etc. so I know where the message is coming from and how it came to me.  Basically I segment my accounts based on function and SPAM potential.  I also do this with conventional mail as well to see who’s selling my information (always fun).  For example I will purposely miss spell my name when subscribing to a magazine so I can see all the junk mail that comes spelled that way.  I later discovered that just adding a middle initial as a code is a great nomenclature for tracking snail mail SPAM.  Try it, I’m sure you’ll have fun learning who’s selling your information and where.

Now on to the email behavior I’d mentioned earlier.  I was looking through my inbox and with no thought involved I was deleting certain messages right away without opening them.  Which led me to think why am I prone to do this and what could the person / company on the other end do to change my behavior.

How did I get in to this pattern of behavior?  Well the pattern was established and reinforced by the companies that I now delete automatically.  They send me too much email (frequency) and really not very interesting emails (value of content).  So over time I learned that emails from xyz company wastes my time and add no value.  All of the companies that I get these emails from are companies that I’ve done business with (in some form) in the past.  Obviously I have some interest in their product or service, but clearly their method of engaging me through these emails is failing.  Even worse they have established a behavior in me that gets me to delete them without even opening the message.  Some I have taken the time to unsubscribe from, yet others have content that I may want like coupons or something that I may find interesting later.  Some I have set filters on so I never see them unless I’m searching my emails, others I just delete manually while scanning my inbox.

So how can these companies change my (and perhaps other peoples) behaviors?  I’ve notices on the flip side some companies do get me to open their emails.  So how do these other companies do it?  First I I suggest that every one of these companies had better be using some monitoring tools to know that I am never opening their emails.  The first key is for them to know (based on data) that people are not reading their message.  If you don’t have data to make decisions on you are lost!  Second I would suggest focusing on the reason people are not opening the emails in the first place.  A few key questions to ask yourself before sending that awesome offer to that email distribution list:

• Do you add any value to that persons day?
• Do you value that persons time?
• Do you listen to your audience?

Suggestions to get your emails opened

1- Use the Golden Rule, ‘Treat others the way you want to be treated’.  Value their time and they will value your message.

2- Provide something that will add value to that person.  Provide information that will help me, provide a savings on things I can use, connect me with opportunities, people or events.

3 – Incorporate feedback methods that show you care about my opinion and clearly my time.  Ask me to help provide relevant emails, use any one of the many tools out there to get engage your audience and listen to them!  Adapt to your customers needs and they will respect you like you respect them.

4 – Now to break the email deletion cycle.  Change your email header to break my pattern of deleting your emails.  Change it from the same one you use every time, and put something like, ‘Hope you find this of value’ or ‘We value your time, please help us improve’ or ‘Fred you are important to us, __________’.

5 – Have compelling content that adds value! You can close with your offer, coupon, sales pitch, whatever, but earn it by giving value first!  Provide something for your readers that helps them, could be as simple as a link to a great article.  Value first and you’ll earn my time and I will open your emails.

What do you think?  Are you an email marketer that is getting a lot of deleted messages?  Do you receive a lot of messages that you find that you delete like I do?  Would love to hear your take on this.

Photo Credit: whiteafrican

Tagged as: email marketing, marketing