It’s time to talk about “red flags” in your email funnels.
Now here is where the rubber meets the road. And I have to admit, this is not my favorite part. But it’s necessary to take notice, if you want to have productive emails.
To perfect your email marketing funnels, you need to be aware of certain factors that hinder your success. Many red flags are obvious if you just know where to look. Thankfully these red flags have plenty of solutions to them as well.
Here are five common email funnel red flags we need to notice.
Low Open Rate.
While this is not a metric you usually want to use on its own, a low open rate at least indicates that your subscribers are not reading your content.
This could mean several things. It could mean that your emails aren’t being delivered as they should. Or maybe your subject lines aren’t grabbing their attention. Or you are sending them at the wrong time.
Take notice of these three things. A good internet provider (such as GetResponse) will show statistics on all of these items so that you can see how you are doing.
Try different subject lines. Also try sending the emails at different times.Tweaking here and there can produce better results.
However, a high open-rate will not always translate to success, so you should always track other metrics to measure your results more accurately—for example, a high open-rate with a low click-through rate.
High Open Rate with Low Click-Through Rate
This means you are on the right track as your readers are interested, but something about the product you are advertising is off. Maybe the price is too high, or it doesn’t actually solve their problem.
High Click-Through Rate with Low Conversions
Again, this can be associated with the same problem presented above. The readers are clearly enjoying the content as they click through; however, you cannot make the final conversion.
This could indicate a disconnect in your landing page from your email. Your email had enough detail to persuade them to click on the landing page; however, the expectations were not set.
Be sure you don’t have any misleading discounts and that your email and landing pages have similar expectations.
High Unsubscribe Rate
This can happen for a couple of common reasons. First, you are either marketing your opt-in copy or forms to the wrong people, sending out too many emails, or are developing copy that is not compelling enough or too spam-like for your audience.
Some marketers say that to solve this you need to keep your sequences short and direct and not send emails too often.
I have a different take on this. Of course, you don’t want your true customers to start unsubscribing. However, when people unsubscribe, I just think they aren’t my true customers. In fact I don’t want people on my list who are totally disinterested in my information.
So the idea is to know your target audience well, including how you can help them. Then you can develop the right content, products, and services to prevent a high unsubscribe rate.
Usually, your unsubscribe rate is not a problem if you start with your buyer personas in mind. There will always be a few, and you can’t worry about that.
Varying Unsubscribe Rates Per Sequence
You want to take notice of this one.
Some email sequences may be too long, too short, or seen as spam. Also, some customers may end up in the wrong sequence leading them to unsubscribe. (Thus you should be sure most of your readers are in more than one sequence).
Email marketing isn’t an exact science. You are working with many different people and many types of personalities. Don’t take it as an insult when people don’t open. don’t buy, or unsubscribe.
We notice these red flags so that we can increase our effectiveness. We continue to look for the right people and offer them an opt-in. Then we notice if they open, if they click, and if they buy.
Then we boldly and confidently try new things. We might land on a truly successful approach which will surprise us.
Successful email marketing will always require consistent reviewing and updating.
And the more we continue, the more successful we will become.
