Ask Steph: How do I boost email list engagement?

Today I am answering a question from a listener who is struggling to engage her email list and get them to click through on her emails. Whilst her list is growing well, she is concerned that her email marketing is not generating results. In this episode, I break down the steps to overcome this issue.

– How to evaluate the open rate of your emails
– The factors that impact deliverability and how to navigate these
– How to improve your click-through rate by nailing your copywriting skills and mixing up your email structure
– How your sales page can impact the results of your email marketing
– Evaluating the relevancy of your email list by getting specific on your lead magnet

Have a question you’d like me to answer on the show? Write in with your question at https://stephtaylor.co/asksteph

 

Today, I'm answering a listener question that was submitted by Beck Norris. She says, Hey, Steph, I've been loving your podcast episodes lately. They really seem to be exactly what I need to hear at that moment.

In essence, how do I boost my email list engagement? I've recently seen some great growth in my email list, which has almost doubled from 200 to 400 since August 22. But notice that my emails aren't quite hitting the mark when it comes to click rates at the moment, sitting between zero and 2% with zero conversions. 

So even if they do click the link, there is no conversion on the other side. Additionally, I recently sent out a survey, asking my email list, why they didn't join in my recent membership launch. I haven't received one response yet, despite there only being three questions and a donation to a local charity again, how do I get my audience to engage in my content and be excited to join my offers or provide feedback? 

Firstly, I want to say, the click rate between zero and 2% is not terrible. It's pretty standard. I think most industries have a click rate of around 2%. So if we say, okay, you've got 400 people on your email list and only 2% of them are clicking. But there are three things that I want to cover in this episode. 

 

How to evaluate the open rate of your emails

Firstly, we need to break down each step. And those are the open rate, click rate, and conversion rate.

If we look at the open rate first, now you haven't mentioned this in your question, but I'd be so curious to know. What percentage of people on your list are opening your emails? And with a list of your size, I would hope it's more than 30% as lists grow into the thousands. The open rate does have a tendency to decrease, especially if you've been doing this for a while. And there might be people on your list who were interested when they signed up five years ago, and now they no longer are. That's okay. 

But I would hope at this stage it's around 30% or more but if it's less than that. Then that's a sign that there's nothing wrong with the emails you're writing or what you are selling them. But actually, there's something wrong with either your subject line. It means your subject line isn't inspiring anyone to open them, or there is an issue with your email deliverability. And I would say it's most likely the deliverability because this has been a pretty huge issue for anybody doing email marketing, especially at the moment.

 

The factors that impact deliverability and how to navigate these

Deliverability is how many emails are getting into people's inboxes versus their spam folders. Now when you send an email to your subscribers, it is getting sent from an IP address. This is where your email marketing tool takes care of all of this stuff that you don't even need to know about. But it's coming from an IP address. 

And with most of those email marketing tools, you actually share an IP address with a bunch of other users who are the senders. And if just one of those other centers is super spammy and they're constantly getting marked as spam, that can impact your deliverability as well, because now Gmail and Outlook are saying, oh, there's an email coming from this IP address. And lots of people have said that this IP address is spam. So we're now going to put all of the emails from this IP address into somebody's junk mail.

What can you do about that? 

Well, some email marketing tools will let you message their support and ask them to switch you. You can ask them to switch you to a new IP address but you generally do have to say, look, these open rates are low well below industry standard, and we haven't been sending spam. You have to be able to show them those things. So ask their support team, how much that costs.

It could also be other factors that impact deliverability. If your emails are really large file sizes, for example, if you're embedding photos and GIFs, that can really make the file quite bloated and that can send them to spam. If you search spam score checker in Google, you'll be able to find there are some tools where you can paste your emails in, and you can also do a deliverability check in some of them as well. And that'll show you whether you have an issue with deliverability. 

 

How to improve your click-through rate by nailing your copywriting skills and mixing up your email structure

Then the next thing we want to look at is that click, right? But how do we influence that click? So once somebody has opened that email, now you need to get them reading and you need to keep them reading and you need to compel them to click.

And that might sound so simple in theory. But what it really drills down to is being able to write good copy. And that doesn't mean being a clever writer or witty writer. Everybody thinks being a good writer or being able to write good copy is about being funny and clever. And you know, everybody loves reading your stuff because it's so engaging.

That's not it. Being a good copywriter means knowing who you are writing for and writing in a way that clearly communicates to that particular person and keeps them reading. And this is one of the reasons why I say it's so important to define exactly who your ideal client is. So that you can write for that ideal client, not for everybody who's on your list.

If you are somebody who is saying, hello, everybody, or hi guys, or hi everyone. And you're referring to them as my subscribers, rather than as you. If you're talking to them as a collective, rather than a person. That is the first sign that there's something not going right with your copy. 

You want to be talking to the subscriber, the one person, not the collective. I would recommend it if you haven't already invested in a copywriting course, pick a good copywriting course and learn about consumer psychology. Learn about how to clearly identify that right person, that ideal client, how to write for them, how to identify what they're struggling with, and write for them. 

It's not easy. When I say persuasive, I don't mean persuading somebody to buy something they don't need. I mean, persuasive in terms that it's engaging, it's compelling and they are hooked and they want to read it. They're thinking, this is for me.

 

Test different email structures

Another thing you can do is test different structures for your emails. Try short emails if you usually send long ones or vice versa. If you usually include multiple calls to action in your email, like multiple different links, try doing an email with just one link or the other way around, test different things. See what works, see what doesn't work. It is trickier with a small subscriber base. It's harder to get that low, that granularity of data.

 

The conversion rate

And then the third thing that we want to look at is that conversion on the sales page. So at the start of this blog, I did the calculation, right? You said you've got 400 people on your list and 2% of them click through. So that's eight people maybe who are looking at your sales page.

So that's not that many. So if one of those eight people converted, that would mean your sales page has a conversion rate of like 12%, something like that if my math is right. That's a pretty high conversion rate. So it could be a matter of just not getting enough people onto that sales page. Or it could be one of these other two things. 

So the first thing could be (and this first thing has everything to do with your email list, by the way) how warm your audience is or how ready they are to buy. And then the second thing has nothing to do with your email list. And that is what is on the sales page, what that sales page sells. 

 

How your sales page can impact the results of your email marketing

So the first part, how warm your audience is and how ready they are to buy.

Your email marketing is not just there to sell to them. It's a place for you to deliver free content to them. And that can be sending them to go and listen to your podcast or consumer video that you've recorded, or it can also just be that you share a piece of content. Like you write something that's valuable to them in an email and that's it. 

So it's also that email marketing is there to help bridge the gap between where they are right now and where they need to be, to be ready to buy. The same as the rest of your free content. You are the expert. They are not experts in what you do. So if they are not converting, it could be that they don't quite understand the problem they're struggling with or the solution to their problem or the transformation. 

The second part is what is on the sales page. And that has nothing to do with your email list, or how engaged your email list is. So once someone has clicked from your email onto your sales page, it is now the sales page's job. 

Once someone has clicked on your email, it is now the sales page's job to sell to them. So it's likely then that there's something in the sales page that isn't quite hitting the mark or there's something that's missing from it. But again, I don't know if we have enough numbers to actually say the sales page isn't converting because I don't know how many people in total have viewed your sales page. 

Now the goal with your sales page and your emails isn't to get them excited about your offers. I know you said this, you asked this in your question. How can you get them excited about your offers?

It's not, we don't need to get them excited. Excitement is not what sells. They care about the problem that they have. They want to know how this thing is going to change their life. They are not going to get excited about it, but they do want to know how it's going to change their life. And they might get excited about the potential future that they will have after they invest in this thing.

 

Evaluating the relevancy of your email list by getting specific on your lead magnet

So we've looked at the open rate, click rate, and conversion rate. But something else outside of all of that is also looking at who we are building the list with. So your list is growing well, but are they the right people for what you are selling them? How relevant is the lead magnet you are using to build your email list with, and is that lead magnet, moving them closer to buying?

Having that specific lead magnet for that specific avatar, rather than just having one general catch-all lead magnet can actually help to increase those conversions as well. And then also, other things like timing. 

People often will put off buying until they have a reason to buy right now. And if you don't give them a reason to buy right now, they will keep kicking that can down the road and not make a decision. So it might look like one week you're offering bonuses or maybe if they sign up before this certain date, they get a Q and A call or, there are certain things that you can put in there that aren't like high-pressure sales tactics, but they are an incentive with a deadline for somebody to take action.

And then that way, if it's something that they really have been on the fence about seeing that deadline might just be what they needed to nudge them off the fence. 

 

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