You’ve written your content, and you’re nurturing your leads. You’ve even done a good job at keeping your list healthy by ensuring proper lead gen and opt-ins. Yet leads are going through your nurture series without engaging. In this 3 part series, I’ll walk you through how to get those precious lead’s attention. We’ll cover why your leads don’t engage, how to get their attention back, types of content that drives engagement and how to keep them engaged.  

5 Tell Tail Signs Why Subscribers Don’t Engage

Content is irrelevant

Are you treating your audience members like people or a number on paper? Are you blasting out a “one size fits all” message to all your contacts? Personalized content that is specific to each of your readers will increase your engagement and save your relationships with your subscribers. Personalized emails improve ctr by 14% and conversion rates by 10%. Make your audience believe that they are special to you and the feeling will be reciprocated.

Email is sent to SPAM

Is your email even making it to their inbox?

It’s hard to tell whether or not your email is getting into the inbox, and if your email isn’t getting into your reader’s inbox then they can’t engage with your content. So how do you determine if your emails make it? Tools like Cisco’s senderbase.org and mxtoolbox.com can help provide insights into how your email reputation is affecting your spam rate. Unfortunately for small and new businesses you need to be sending a high enough volume in order to even be registered by some of these tools. What can you do if you suspect your emails aren’t making it to your reader’s inbox? I’d recommend talking to returnpath as they have some great tools to help monitor your deliverability.   

Content is poorly written

You don’t have to be a pulitzer prize-winning writer, but you should have a solid grasp on writing fundamentals. Write with a conversational voice that will keep your readers interested. Don’t be too formal or boring. Give your words some life with active verbs and fun sayings. And, of course, in the interest of appearing professional, use proper grammar and spelling. Ever heard of AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action)? Give it a google and try it in your next email.

You have bad lead data

Are you using data that is outdated or coming from a questionable source? You might as well leave it out. Your credibility as a business is directly affected by the content you produce. Don’t let bad data hold you back. Make sure it is relevant, recent, and from a trustworthy source.  

The lead is unsure how they got on your list

Be transparent in your relationship with your customers. Let them know what they are signing up for and when they are signing up for it. Diluting your relationships with confusion will only frustrate your readers and deter them from continuing to pursue your business. On the other hand, being upfront will create more successful and meaningful business relationships for you.

Bonus – they don’t like engaging in email.

Some people just aren’t cut out for email. Whether they don’t understand it or don’t have time, the outcome is the same. They don’t like it, they won’t spend time doing it.

Find out who isn’t engaged

Now that you know all the tell-tail signs of unengaged users, we’ve included a quick method for defining leads in your database who are not engaged below. Keep a look out for part 2 of this series or subscribe to our blog to get weekly updates and never miss a thing.

3 Metrics for Defining Inactivity – the COP method

Use this method every 6 to 9 months to keep your data clean and your sales team happy.

Clicks

These are the most reliable metric for determining inactivity. Obviously, if someone isn’t clicking on your emails, they are not actively engaging.

Opens

Do people open your emails? People can’t interact with your content if they aren’t opening your email. Although less reliable than clicks, opens can help us determine a reader’s level of engagement.

Potential

Don’t keep beating a dead horse. If your reader shows no potential in interaction, cease email. Cut your losses here and put your resources into another customer.