Email fatigue occurs when your subscribers start to unsubscribe and/or your open and click rates fall. It is usually the result of sending too many emails or sending content that is not connecting with your audience. With several factors causing email fatigue, several components make up its solution. Here are five ways to limit fatigue and increase your email conversions.
1. Start with Data Collection
A key starting point is gathering all the most important data related to your existing campaigns. It would be good to know:
- Optimal send date and times
- Click-thru rates on each link (the most valuable content)
- Open rates related to varied send times and subject lines
- Send frequency
Send frequency is usually a main culprit of fatigue and should be carefully discussed. Maybe you just need one main newsletter to go to your whole audience once a month. Supplemental content could go out to specific audiences, like those with a lot of clicks who are really engaged or those who have only shown interest in a particular product.
2. Test Subject Lines
Take the time to test subject lines and look for common subject lines that were successful. Some factors your audience may respond to include: specific info like dates and times, a teaser with potential learnings, active language about missing out on something like a deal, or a mystery that gets revealed inside the email. Look at your past subject lines and see what has been working and stick with those successes going forward.
3. Segment Your Audiences
This is probably the hardest task on the list, but this effort will provide the most value in my opinion. Breaking your lists up into people who responded to specific content or offers will ensure that each email is valuable to that subscriber. Using targeted subject lines, your reader starts to see relevant content to them, starts becoming more engaged and starts purchasing more or going to your site more.
4. Solicit Feedback on Content
While you have your audience engaged (i.e. they have opened the email or clicked through to your site), ask them about the kind of content they are most interested in. Provide a selection list of content themes or articles on a quick survey to find out the kind of content your audience wants to read. Then you can further segment your readers and send them articles they specifically asked for. Plus, it allows you to stock your content calendar with new content ideas!
5. Vary the Design
Changing up the look of the template you use every 3-4 months can also help keep people engaged. They may see the same template over and over and start to just wash over the content and not read anything. If you change up the look, your readers will pause, start to digest the design and the content, and perhaps reconnect.
Author: Shane Davis
Digital Marketing