6 Marketing Email Fails That Kill Conversion Rates

Has this ever happened to you? You find an affiliate product or service, or you create one of your own, that you are certain your list will be excited about. Off you go to create a world-class marketing email to spread the word.

In just a few minutes, you have what you believe must be one of the best emails ever written by a human. With enormous excitement, you load it up and click “send.”

Rushing to open your email client, you expect a flood of sale notices to start popping into your inbox at any moment.

You wait.

And you wait.

Nothing.

Crickets.

What happened?

Many times, it boils down to one or more of these 6 fails that can cause marketing emails to crash and burn. Have these tripped you up before?

Fail #1 – Skipping The Planning Phase

While most affiliates and online marketers don’t want to hear this, it is 100% true. Successful marketing emails require planning.

• What’s the best style of email that will resonate with your peeps?
• What will the focal point of the email be? (No, it’s not always what you’re promoting.)
• Should it be a one-off or a series?
• How long will the marketing email be?
• Which persuasive phrases will you include?
• How will you transition from the email copy to the pitch?

And lots of other considerations need to go into every marketing email you write.

Yes, some people with tons of email writing experience can handle the planning phase mentally on the fly. Most people, however, will want to take a few minutes to gather their thoughts and plan their strategy in order to get the best open and click rates (which equals more sales).

Fail #2 – Not Varying Your Email Copywriting Style

Email copywriting is completely unique to each writer. Even if you give 20 people the exact same details about an affiliate product they want to promote, you’ll probably see 20 very different end results.

And that’s great!

Individuality is what makes your subscribers stick with you. They connect with you (or you connect with them).

What isn’t great is writing every single email the exact same way. That gets boring.

• Story emails
• Lesson emails
• Direct emails
• Case study emails

…and plenty of other styles give you a wide selection to choose from so that you can highlight the promotional information in different ways. Switch things up and see how your list responds to each one. You just might find some brand-new ways to boost your income.

Fail #3 – Not Sending Enough Promotional Emails

When it comes to promotional emails, this is a point of debate, for sure! How many emails should you send your list about any given product or service? Only one? Maybe two? Six? 10

How often should you email? Every day? Once a week? Once a month?

While there are opinions that you’ll annoy you list or get lots of unsubscribes if you email too often, there is also proof that sending more than one email drastically increases conversions.

According to Zettasphere, “Email frequency send sweet spot is 6.21 emails per week [new analysis].” But they immediately make clear in their article that every market (niche) has a different sending sweet spot.

Here are a few other things to consider:

Why are you sending emails? Do you have something helpful to say? Are you providing value or just noise? If you have an awesome deal to share with your list, or some useful tips, information on an upcoming webinar, etc., then by all means email away!

Are you’re wracking your brain trying to figure out what type of promotional emails to send this week just for the sake of sending one email per day (as someone told you was necessary)? Then stop and evaluate whether that practice is actually working for you.

If your promotional emails are making you money and growing your list, carry on! If not, it may be time for a change.

Fail #4 – Pretending To Be Someone Else

Have you ever read sales emails and thought they sounded… off? Almost like the writer was trying to be someone s/he wasn’t? Lots of people believe they have to sound a certain way when writing sales emails to make them successful.

Here’s a myth buster. You need to sound like you in your own best voice. It’s never a good idea to pretend to be someone else.

How do you discover your best voice? Find sales emails you’ve written before that performed well. Then think of times when you loved the way you communicated with your audience (and they loved it, too). Maybe that was a webinar you did, a podcast you were a guest on, or a video that got lots of traction.

Then work toward combining the written version and the verbal version of your best you.

The end result is almost always your natural voice with a little bit of excitement expressed in a way that lights up your audience.

Fail #5 – Always Inserting A P.S. On Persuasive Emails

Here’s another debatable question. Should you always include a P.S. when you write persuasive emails? My answer is no.

While many people swear that a P.S. is a vital part of every email, my experience tells me that (with my list) the P.S. has become overused. From conversations with business friends, I’ve discovered many are seeing the same thing.

When what was once a novelty becomes status quo, it also becomes common. That means the excitement of finding a little nugget of tucked-away information becomes a roll of the eyes.

I find the best results from a P.S. come when I reserve it for something unique. I don’t always use them because I want that novelty to actually be novel. Then, when subscribers do see a P.S. at the end of a persuasive email, they know it is something special they should pay close attention to.

Fail #6 – Neglecting to Split Test (A/B Test) Your Emails

If you don’t test and track your subject lines, images, body copy, CTAs and more, you won’t have any idea about what is working and what isn’t.

A/B spit testing is the simple process of comparing one thing to another thing to see which one your list likes best. For example, you might write one subject line that asks a question then write another one that includes numbers.

Control: Which of these entrepreneurial traits do you have?

Test: 10 traits all successful entrepreneurs have

Which one will get more opens? The only way to know is to split test them. It’s not a complicated process and virtually all email marketing platforms these days offer built-in A/B testing features.

What will knowing which of these subject lines are preferred do for you? It will give you hard evidence of a particular type of subject that you know you list responds to. The more testing you do, the longer your list of proven subject line styles you’ll have to pull from when you send emails.

Email split testing isn’t just for subject lines. You can test pretty much every element of your email. Think about how much presuasive power that will give you!

Cool, right?

Whether you’re promoting your own products / service or working as an affiliate, email is one of the most effective types of marketing communication available. Plus, it’s practically the only marketing channel that you have total control over (unlike social media or SEO).

When you’re ready to upgrade your skills for writing marketing emails, get instant access to my Email Advantage: How To Write Promotional Emails That Convert. Plus, save 40% when you use code EMAILADVBLOG.

Have questions about marketing emails? Talk to me below!

 Recommended Learning & Tools

Email Marketing Campaigns: How To Fill Your Calendar With Engaging Offers That Get Results by Cindy Bidar. Save 40% with code EMC40.

12 Promotional Email Copywriting Templates Proven to Sell – Save $8 with code PECT

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