You want people to read your emails.
Whether you want to start building relationships or selling stuff…
And you may be thinking…
“Why don’t people want to read my emails? I put a lot of time and effort into them…”
And every single time when you check your list you see that people don’t even want to touch what you have to offer.
And then *click* off to the trash bin it goes where it will never see the day of light again.
So…
Why is this happening to me?
Chances are you probably aren’t writing something attention inducing for your audience.
Something that yells out to them “Yes this email understands me” or “this headline makes me curious” or anything that drives them wild (girls gone wild status…)
And how do you do that?
The first step is to…
Get Into The Head Of Your Ideal Customer
Now there could be a lot of reasons why people aren’t opening your emails.
It looks spammy or promotional…
You have the wrong people on your list…
Your email subject line isn’t drawing enough attention…
But let’s say that you do have the right audience and offer but they are still not clicking on your emails.
Then that’s something we can fix.
The first thing you should be aware of before you send them anything is…
1. People have different moods depending on the time and day of the week
Everyone feels differently throughout the day.
People like checking their emails right before they get to work (or maybe at work) and they are more focused on scanning through their email box.
Maybe in the afternoon, they don’t have time to check the work (because they are working at their actual job…) and even if they are checking their email they are probably in a state of being “busy.”
And at night they are probably chilling on the couch. They are much more relaxed and may or may not be open to buying something.
When we are feeling different moods, that changes our actions.
Because…
We Are Creatures Who Are Controlled By Our Emotions.
So if you feel busy and don’t feel like checking your email… chances are that email is going to be sent to the trash bin without even a glance.
You might be thinking it might be better to send it in the morning (but you really never know because everyone is different)
Not only the time of day but the day of the week also plays a huge role in your click-throughs.
That’s because…
Everyone has their own opinion on how they feel on a certain day!
Let’s go through the average mood swing throughout the week.
Monday… “Ugh, I have to go back to work this weekend…”
Tuesday… “Still 4 more days left till the weekend but I’m used to this routine…”
Wednesday or Thursday… “It’s the middle of the week but it’s getting close to Friday…”
Friday… “Finally after today I can go home and relax for the weekend…”
Saturday…”Today is my day off time to just chill and relax…”
And finally back to Sunday… “Today is my rest day but I have to get ready for work tomorrow…”
Now that was just a generalized idea of what most people have thought about on different days of the week.
So if you send an email on Monday, they probably don’t feel like working and will grudgingly trough along with the emails.
But if you send it on a Friday, they might speed up and go through the emails faster because their workweek is almost over.
Now, what does this mean?
It means there are a perfect time and day for your specific audience of when they would be receptive of when to buy.
But there’s only one way to figure it out…
Test it yourself. (I know you have to spend some time and money to see what people respond to best.)
Now what I just sent over is something generalized I just pulled out of my booty-hole just to get you thinking from a different perspective on how I personally feel throughout the week when j had a job.
Which you can use to strategize 😉
Which leads us to our second problem…
2. People Probably Don’t Want To Read Your Emails
*shock*
I know…I know.
You may spend a lot of time crafting that perfect email response and you find out that no one really wants to read your emails.
And it makes sense.
We have been conditioned by society and companies to receive shit tons of spam and promotional offers that we easily unsubscribe nowadays.
So how do you make people stay on your email list? It’s simple really (but not easy.)
- Make your emails entertaining
- Make your emails valuable
Now you want to make it valuable for your specific niche and problem. (It wouldn’t make sense to talk about the benefits of bacon if you readers are vegan…)
Now how do you make your emails entertaining?
Well you talk in your emails like how you talk in real life (just like this…)
And…
You weave stories into your emails and bring them back to your message...
Humans looooove stories.
Now it’s going to take some time to craft stories your readers would find interesting.
Just think about it for a second…
Haven’t you had a time where the plot of your favorite series was so good that you decided to binge-watch it until the end?
That’s exactly the same set of feelings you want to bring into your emails every single time.
You want to position yourself as someone who provides entertaining and valuable emails to your subscribers.
This will make you seem like an authority on the subject because they will read more from you.
This will make people become more loyal to you (when they read more of your emails.)
And when the time to finally pitch your product comes in… Shazam!
It’s a lot easier for them to convert.
So this leads us back to the question of why people don’t read your emails…
Because it’s probably boring!!!
Yeah, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you just probably don’t have the ability to write good stories yet.
So How Do You Get Better At Writing Stories In Your Emails?
Well, first I’d recommend you read some scriptwriting books and then just start writing stories from the get-go.
You don’t say you are good at writing stories?
Well silly… we all have to start from somewhere (many professionals writers have had to start as crappy writers at one point…)
So… start weaving stories into your emails and your emails are more likely to be read.
3. People Are Tired, Bored, Busy, Lazy, And Don’t Feel Compelled To Read Your Emails
This goes back to point number 1 where people don’t really care about reading your emails and don’t find it valuable.
You see… when they subscribe to your emails they are probably looking for a solution to a problem they have.
Or it’s such a good deal for a jacket that they really really want what you’re selling.
When you start crafting your emails… delve deep into the deepest darkest desires, fears, hopes, and dreams of your customers (and really go deep 😉
What you want to do is figure out their problems and make your emails the solution to their problem.
For example, if I am in the bodybuilding supplement industry and I want readers to read and click through my email.
Of course, everyone wants to build muscle if they are subscribed. But each person has their own specific problem and niche.
For example, the desire for a skinny, scrawny kid who wants to stand on the shoulders of the giants but struggles to even gain weight.
So okay… maybe I should focus on this…
But I want you to take one step farther. What does he struggle with physically? (Or even better yet what does he think he will struggle with?)
He will probably be bloated, gassy, and feel terrible from overeating on foods that will help him to gain weight and will have to maintain that for months.
So what if you position your supplements so that it was against all that?
And then maybe in your email tease about how you are able to solve all these problems with your supplement (provided it’s a supplement to help gain muscle…)
4. People View Emails Differently From A Sales Letter Or Door To Door Salesman
The medium of emails is that people want to read short snippets of entertaining, valuable emails (or that’s the ideal.)
That’s why some people check their emails because they are addicted to the short term gratification of all the notifications of receiving something in the mail which they might find valuable.
That’s why some people check emails when they are on the toilet…
Now… this means you can write an amazing long-copy email for your clients…and it will probably work.
But you probably don’t want that person to read an email for 15 minutes standing (or even sitting on the toilet) because most people tend to view it on their phone.
Rather the logical conclusion is to take that long sales letter, put it onto your clickthrough site and then have a short copy of an email that teases everything about that email.
This is because we have such short attention spans that reading an email when we are going through the mall makes us physically unable to read the entire email. Or even on lunch break.
And this causes a lot of problems.
5. Your Subject Lines Aren’t Catchy Enough To Grab Their Attention
So now we are finally going into something tangible you can change immediately.
If people aren’t clicking on your emails, then it’s either the sender or your subject lines.
Let me put it like this…
If you saw an email from Wal-Mart you would probably think it’s another promotional offer (which you aren’t wrong) and you might click it from time to time but you won’t put the utmost priority into opening these emails.
Nope… You would probably open it from time to time when you have a lot of spare time just to see what they have to offer.
The second reason is your subject line.
If it’s something spammy like “Have a chance to win a FREE ipad!!!”
Or something generic like “Here’s a 20% Discount Coupon For You”
Or something that’s too creative “When God Smiles, The Squirrel Smiles” (Okay I would probably click on that email, to be honest…)
Basically… it doesn’t jive with your audience.
Some people like it witty, some like it valuable and clear from the get-go, some just want a laugh to improve their mood.
Now you don’t know where to start don’t cha? Don’t worry… we all get writer’s block eventually.
The best way to fix it is to just come up with 10 headlines you think sound good and pick the one that you like the most. Simple really.
Will it be the best subject line evaaaa??? Probably not. But it will be good enough that you actually put into the thought of what your audience wants to read and you created different variations of it.
Conclusion
So here are 5 reasons why people wouldn’t read your emails.
We go on to explain how different times of the day create different moods of the day.
We then go over that people probably don’t want to read your emails because of the different moods that we go through and can’t really control.
And then we go over some subject line ideas to help you have a better chance for a higher conversion rate.
Which tip did you find the most helpful above? Let me know in the comments below.