In the email marketing space, there are a number of questions that come up over and over again.
So, in this post, I’ll be answering some of the most common questions I get asked.
Let’s begin…
What is the typical open rate for an email list?
This varies greatly depending on a number of factors…
The quality of the list, the niche you’re in, and how often you mail your list…
But studies show that the average open rate for an email list is around 20%.
And I would have to agree…
From what I’ve seen, for a bigger email list (10-15k+), it’s good to aim for 15-25% open rates.
If you have a smaller list, at around 5k subscribers, you should be aiming for slightly higher (25-35%)
But for any lower than 10% open rates, you need to do some investigating as you’re most likely hitting spam.
How do I improve my deliverability?
Make sure you take a look at the following:
- Check your email reputation with Mail-Tester.com to see if there’s anything wrong with your email.
- Stop sending to cold subscribers
- Be mindful of the contents of your emails so you’re not triggering the spam filter.
- If you have a big list, segment it.
And if you want any more information on how to improve your deliverability – Click here to read the free resource I put together on improving your email deliverability.
What do I write about in my emails?
This is one of the biggest reasons why people don’t mail their lists on a consistent basis.
They have no idea what to write about.
Well, here are a few ideas for you.
> A story about your personal life and how it links to whatever product or service you’re selling…
> Questioning a commonly held belief in your industry.
> Answering a subscriber’s question in one of your emails.
They’re a few ideas straight off the top of my head, but if you want an in-depth guide on some email ideas, you can click here where I go over 7 evergreen ideas you can use over and over again.
Your main objective when creating emails is to make them entertaining and interesting to read because those “How To’ emails (Even though they do have a time and a place) are boring to read and write.
But something you need to realize is this –
Ideas beget ideas
Emails beget emails
Sales beget sales
Homage to Ben Settle for that one.
Starting to write emails is the hardest part, but once you get going (And keep going!)It gets easier and easier.
How do I provide loads of value in my emails?
Here’s what a lot of people get wrong when it comes to creating emails.
People think that in order to provide value to your list, you have to send out ‘How To’ emails…
“Here are 5 exercises you can do today!”
“How to set up an email sequence in convertKit!”
“How to…”
I think you get the point.
And yes, these kinds of emails do have a time and a place…
But the problem is that these emails are painfully boring to write and read…
And what a lot of people who own an email list need to realize is this – value can also come in the form of stories, entertainment, rants, and so on…
So next time you want to provide loads of value to your audience, tell them a story, call out something you don’t like about your industry, or make your email at least entertaining for them to read…
How often should I send emails?
This splits opinions in the email marketing industry…
But in my opinion, you should be emailing your list every day.
And a minimum of 4x a week. Because I’ll see all too often people who complain about not making enough sales from their list and then I’ll ask – “How often are you mailing your list?”
Their reply – “once a month”
It’s basic marketing principles, the more eyeballs you have on your offer, the more sales you’ll get.
So, if you want to make more sales from your email list, simply send more emails.
One caveat: Your emails must be entertaining for the reader. A good rule of thumb I like to use is this:
Leave the reader better than you found them even if they don’t buy what you’re selling.
How often should I sell in my emails?
For this, there’s no right or wrong answer.
Some people like to send out emails for 9/10 months of the year providing pure value followed by a 2-3 month period of hard selling for a flagship product (I’ve seen people do a very successful job of this).
While others will sell in every email year-round.
And I’m a fan of the latter group for a number of reasons.
Here’s what you need to understand –
Going off my last point, as long as your emails are entertaining and fun to read, selling in every email is not a problem…
And doing this will allow you to have consistent income year-round instead of a spike in revenue in a short period of time.
So you have a few options for how you can approach this.
But my advice to you would be to sell in every email and mix it up with hard and soft selling.
One email could be a hard sell of your product or service, for example, it could be a testimonial email dedicated to promoting your product or service…
While a soft sell email could be an entertaining and story-based email with a simple “P.S. Don’t forget about XYZ product” at the end.
Shall I do plain text emails or heavily designed emails?
I’m going to answer this question assuming you’re some kind of creator, course seller, consultant, or coach who has a service or product you want to sell more of.
Send plain text emails.
Because when you compare the two images below, the heavily designed email does look better.
However, there have been numerous tests that have shown plain text emails perform a whole lot better.
Here’s why plain text emails are better:
> They’ve been proven to perform better than heavily designed emails time and time again.
> You have a good chance of landing in the main email tab (Not promo or spam)
> People warm people, not faceless brands (Which a lot of those heavily designed emails are)
> They’re arguably easier to create.
> They work on every device and don’t have to worry too much about the format messing up.
What email software provider should I choose?
Check out some of my reviews:
What metrics should I track?
Yes, all metrics are important to a certain degree…
But the one and only metric that trumps all others by a country mile are your conversions.
In my opinion, metrics like open rates and click-through rates are vanity metrics for the most part.
Would you rather have a 60% open rate and zero revenue…
Or 20% open rate and sending profitable emails?
Exactly.
Always be optimizing for conversions.
Sidenote:
Obviously, it’s worth keeping an eye on things like open rates if they’re super low (Could be a sign of landing in the spam)…
And a low CTR rate could be a sign of your emails being too long, too boring, or hitting the wrong audience with the wrong offer.
But you should always be looking at these metrics with the mindset of “How can I optimize these to increase conversions”
And not improving these metrics for the sake of improving them.
I keep getting unsubscribes, what should I do?
You should do nothing.
Unsubscribers are a good thing.
The chances are, the people who unsubscribed from your list had no intention of buying anyway.
So, as time goes on, you’ll be gaining subscribers and losing some subscribers but as time goes on your list will gradually become more and more qualified with the right prospects.
So, don’t be concerned if you’re getting unsubscribers because it’s inevitable.
That sounds like too much work, can you do it for me?
Yep, just send me an email at Jamie@EmailMaximalist
But first, you must meet the following criteria:
- Have a high-ticket product you want to sell more of
- An existing email list of a minimum of 3,000 subscribers
If that’s you, just send me an email with as much information as possible.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully you’ve found this useful, these are the main questions I get asked on a regular basis about email marketing.
And feel free to reference this or point people in this direction if you get asked a similar question.
If you have any questions about email marketing, just leave me a comment below and I’ll make sure I answer you.
