How many unread emails are in your inbox right now? There is a majority of us that have so many unread emails in our marketing which begs the question: is email marketing dead?

Did you know that 53% of people say they receive too many irrelevant emails from companies! Clearly some people aren’t doing email marketing right because so many people do not like them. 

Email marketing has higher conversion rates than social media and SEO so there is still something happening in our inbox that is converting people and some people are doing this right!

Relevance is everything, you cannot send one email to ALL your database, it just won’t work! You need to email the right person at the right time with the right content! This seems simple but in reality it is difficult.

Make sure you follow these rules so your emails have RELEVANCY: 

1. Segmentation is key – Segmenting emails can increase your revenue by 760% – Make sure your lists are really segmented, based on people’s behaviors, demographics, and dynamic content. This is to make sure your content is relevant to different audiences. You have the tools to segment your audience and create dynamic content which means you can send one email but with different contexts depending on the person. People are different, they have different needs and you need to address those needs through emails. Be aware of the different ways you can segment people either through demographics or behaviors.
2. Automations – Automations traditionally have been based around timelines. Send 1 email wait 1 day, send email 2 wait 1 day, send email 3 wait another day. This has been fine but what we are seeing now is automation based on BEHAVIOURS, not on timelines. This ties into segmentation because people want the right email at the right time. Change automation to send email 1, wait until email 1 has opened, wait a day and send email 2 following up. Base your email automation on their behavior: Are they opening the emails? When are they opening it? This is how you get the right person at the right time with the content to maintain relevantly!
3. Hyper-personalisation – Open rates are 82% higher when you put personalization into emails!  Go beyond hey <name>, make it more personal than that! Insert their name somewhere else in the email so that it is surprising. E.g. “Hey X…. X, I know you are keen to get your weightloss journey going.” This really catches their attention so they are more engaged in their email. Use other data that you have to personalize this like people’s location, age, job, their industry or what program they are in. Make people feel like you know them personally so it isn’t just a standard email, this will increase engagement and make them feel invested!
4. Use multiple channels – Email is not the only option anymore. A lot of people are in emails every day, but there are others who avoid it. If you can’t get people on email then try a different channel. Like sending short texts or use Facebook Messenger to get more into people’s faces. Weekly we send out an email, then the next day we sent it on Facebook Messenger. This gets a whole new group of people that aren’t looking at emails but they look at Facebook.

How to make CONTENT relevant: 

1. Mobile centric design – Always test an email on your mobile. Make it adaptable to mobile including larger call to action buttons, shorter emails with appropriate font size and font type! Send a test and have a look at what it looks like on your phone! Look at it from your customers’ point of view. Where will they be reading it? What will be the best email you can send when they are on their mobile? Make sure the links on your email is also mobile-friendly.
2. Interactive content – Text-only emails are doing a lot better in the inbox than image-based ones but people still expect some imagery. You can use gifs to attract your audience and capture their attention. You can put different quizzes or polls in your email if you want. Interactive content will foster more engagement!
3. Storytelling  – Marketing is about the stories that we tell. Whether it be about your customers, yourselves and your business, your highest rated emails are the ones that you tell a really powerful story. In the fitness industry, this is a powerful tool because you have so many stories to tell, about people’s transformations, what people are doing in training, food, nutrition or wellness programs. Any time you can incorporate storytelling into your emails is going to be really powerful.

BONUS tips:

1. Stop growing your email lists–  This doesn’t mean literally stop growing it. It’s not about the biggest list, it’s about the engaged list. If you have only 10% open with 10000’s of emails, you might have a problem. Those people not opening the email might not be right for you. It is okay to let those people go. Make sure the email list is hyper-engaged.
2. Regularly unsubscribe people from your list – If you have people on your list for 10 years and they never open emails, unsubscribe them from your list! It is easy to do reports like this. Give them a warning email saying something like ‘Hey I noticed you are not opening my emails I’m just wondering if the emails are relevant to you?’ – If they open it they are safe, if they dont you can unsubscribe. This is totally okay to do because at the end of the day if you are getting low open rates your email provider knows that and if people are marking you as spam or unsubscribing themselves with low open rates then your email marketing provider may blacklist you or stop sending out your emails because all of those points lead to a disengaged list. You need to email people who want to be on your list, so don’t be afraid to re-engage them and if they aren’t re-engaged then unsubscribe them.
3. Don’t hide your unsubscribe button – If people can’t find your unsubscribe button they will mark you as spam. The size of your list doesn’t matter if you aren’t relevant to people. You have to let people move on because there are more people out there who can engage with you. 

As an industry-standard, you want around a 30% open rate. If you aren’t getting this then rethink your email marketing strategy with these tips! This will help to keep your emails alive and you will get the clicks and conversions you want!