Laura NollDelivering an email to your audience goes well beyond simply hitting the inbox. Even in business email, driving ROI requires you to get the click. With the rise of content marketing strategies, banner blindness and inboxes full of competing messages — many B2B marketers are asking, “why isn’t this working?” The answers are fairly straightforward:
1. Your CTA is lost in the chaos.
Does your business email have a busy header with multiple links? What about a banner ad or two? Maybe you’ve included 5 of your latest blog posts with images along with icons for every social media account you own? Hidden somewhere in the depths of your email is your call to action. When you include everything and the kitchen sink in your email, the most important piece — your CTA — can become pretty difficult to find. If your audience can’t find it, they can’t click it.
Fix this issue by using a balance of visual dominance and white space to clearly identify your CTA in your email. If there are too many other distractions, remove them. Or, give them less prominence and weight within your message.
2. The content isn’t relevant.
Within a matter of seconds after opening your email, your audience decides whether or not to engage. When the reader scans your message about Top Toothpastes for Cavities but is expecting Heavy Equipment Technology Updates, it’s a pretty surefire assumption that they’re not going to click. Why? Your content was off topic and irrelevant — not even closely pertaining to the information your audience requested from you.
Sending relevant content is not only the best way to maintain deliverability, it’s also the best way for your business email to gain clicks. Know what your audience signed up for and make sure your content is in some way related. You’ll boost clicks by delivering expected content that is worth your readers’ time.
3. The ad was more interesting.
Delivering banner ads paired with content can be one solution for driving business email revenue — but then you’re forcing your reader to choose between engaging with your content or engaging with your ad which can have dramatically different ROI. If you really need your audience to receive your marketing message, distracting them with an ad can be fatal to your campaign. Instead, consider driving revenue from targeted standalone offers. Send the marketing content you need to send without distracting promotions — then, when it’s time to monetize, send a separate highly targeted offer to capitalize on your list and reach. The separate mailings will boost both clicks for the content and clicks for the offer.
4. You have too many links.
Yes — you can have too much of a great thing, especially in email. Links are great ways for getting your audience connected to your content and your brand, but they can quickly get out of control when included in an email. In fact, too many of them can trigger spam filters and destroy your deliverability all together. Industry best practices suggest limiting your link quantity to 5-7 links — optimizing your message, call to action and clarity for the user.
5. The timing could be better.
Did you deliver your email at 11:59 p.m. on a Saturday? What about noon on a Tuesday? Depending on your audience, you might have better options. Carefully consider the timing of your message. If you’re sending a Lunch Update to the Grilled Cheese of the Day Club, an 11 a.m. announcement is likely to perform much, much better than a 4 p.m. Think about the most logical and appropriate time of day or day of the week that someone could receive your newsletter, then set your delivery with that target in mind!
6. It can’t be read on mobile.
So much of the industry’s email is read on mobile devices that B2B marketers miss out on engaging a significant portion of their audience when emails aren’t designed for mobile. Send a responsive or mobile-optimized message to achieve the best possible reach and to immediately drive more clicks to your site. Just remember — you need to deliver a mobile landing page too to really see success from those conversions.
This post originally appeared on the AdStation blog.
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