Shocking but understandable news about email subscriber view of email; “readers make little distinction between unsolicited emails and emails they signed up for, treating them all the same once they grew tired of the content.” Adam Blitzer writes on his blog B2B Marketing ROI.
As a marketer I'd like to think that every word I write, because I take so much time to make it relevant, is read by the recipient. MediaPoint Email Insider broke the story (B2B Marketing ROI made me aware of it), “The Often Baffling Behavior of Email Subscribers” is worth a read.
It noted that most of your subscribers don't know how to sort, manage, and get the most from email. They “indicate that they just deleted unwanted emails, whether they were spam or just irrelevant permission-based email.”
This frustration grows, with messages they saved to read later cluttering their inbox till overflow. Because they don't know how to manage email, they are often not paying attention to what they receive.
While the original study was based on consumers, your executives level decision makers are just the same. This is horrible information, it means that most of your email marketing or even content driven newsletters are ignored.
It gets me thinking on how I format new messages, or what I can do to improve my materials. What you can do to get around this is use multiple mediums? This is exactly why I recommend you use response based interactions to capture full contact information of those interested in your solutions.
You could send the same newsletter to a postal address for a better response, or run your campaign across multiple touch channels to actually be seen. As your readers get better with email you'll see better responses, but right now get them where they are.
Because most email messages go unread, you can't rely on email alone to build your business (or drive traffic to your business website.) Use multiple mediums in series and you'll get your message to the right readers.
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Justin Hitt helps industrial and technology based service firms attract profitable customers, including using email marketing correctly. For an initial consultation visit https://www.jwhco.com/