3 Reasons New Business Owners Give Up on Email Marketing (And Why They Should Stick With It Instead)
In our experience, many business owners who start off with a DIY (Do It Yourself) email marketing effort soon discover that it’s not as quick and easy as they’d hoped. The discouragement and give-up rate is high. Here are the top 3 reasons:
1) Time: The first reason DIYers give up is that it takes more time and attention than they thought it would. You need to 1) determine a fresh content strategy and write or curate copy for every new email, 2) adjust the template, ensure images and links, and 3) test and schedule the email.
This combination of creative and technical effort can quickly become the most dreaded time of the week or month. This is why Email Marketing Services like ours are helpful.
Why Stick With It: It’s actually incredibly time-efficient compared to other marketing methods! You’re sending it to already-interested subscribers, which is much better than taking your chances creating and testing an ad.
2) Open Rate: The second reason DIYers tend to give up on email marketing is the psychological reaction to the dreaded Open Rate. The average Open Rate across all industries is a mere 21% (see table), resulting in statements like:
“Why would I put my time into email marketing if 79% of my subscribers don’t even bother to open the email?”
Why Stick With It: Focus less on percentages and more on the people.
Let’s say you’re new with a small list of 50 people. With an Open Rate of 20%, 11 people open your email. That’s 11 people showing interest in your art and what you offer while you’re just going about your typical day.
That’s 11 more than if you did nothing.
Now imagine that with consistent social media and other efforts, your list has grown to 300 people over time. With a 20% Open Rate, 60 people open each email to see your work.
Let’s say you end up with 1 sale/month from your email marketing efforts. That’s still 1 sale you did not have through any other means.
What about when your list reaches 1000? That’s 200 people taking a look.
3000? That’s 600 people looking at just one email.
If you send 4 emails/month, that’s over 2400 sets of eyes looking at your work in your email.
Isn’t any of that better than 0?
There are also ways to improve Open Rates, starting with writing compelling subject lines. Listicles, event news, causes, and giveaways are ideal subject lines. Or hire a marketing expert adept at curating engaging subject lines, well-written copy, and selecting strong images.
3) Impatience: The third reason DIYers neglect email marketing is impatience. First, making a sale online usually takes longer than selling in-person. Viewing products via a website is less likely to result in impulse spending (unless extremely low-priced). Online purchases usually involve more thought and comparison shopping.
Second, depending on their skills, business owners might lose patience with the technical tools for designing and sending email marketing. Whether you’re using MailChimp, Constant Contact, or the built-in tools with Shopify or Squarespace, these platforms frequently change the user experience in the name of innovation.
Why Stick With It: As we like to say …
Business is a long game.
Persistence is prerequisite.
Resilience is required.
Thinking long-term and investing time and money into your online marketing should pay off over time.
Online sales have steadily increased over the years and will continue to do so, especially with advances in augmented reality technology.
Secondly, the potential exposure of a new product online is significantly higher than foot traffic in a specialty store.
Third, if you build your list and get no sales in a year, it means something else needs to change. It could be your pricing, your offering itself, your tone, your subject lines, needing to create a more exclusive feel, or envisioning new ways of offering your product or service.
While you should not necessarily compromise on margins, you could consider a “loss leader” to gain some momentum.
Finally, it’s just a fact of life that technical tools constantly change. If your dread of email marketing is because of this factor, it’s wise to consider support from our team.
Read more about Email Marketing: 5 Reasons Why Email Marketing is Essential for All Businesses
