Building up a subscriber list takes a persistent effort. Each email you send to your list is an opportunity to engage with your customers. For marketers, emails remain one of the best channels available to generate leads, convert subscribers into customers, and drive revenue for your company. However, from time to time, marketers may notice that subscribers are trashing their emails.
If there’s a trend of emails going to trash folders instead of the inbox, it could point to a variety of factors. Read on to discover the most common pitfalls that marketers need to address to help keep their emails from ending up in the trash folder.
What is email trashing?
Trashing an email isn’t the same as marking it as spam. When someone trashes an email, it doesn’t affect deliverability rates in the same way. It does, however, affect conversion and open rates.
It means that your audience isn’t interested in the content you’re sending them.
Here are some steps marketers can take to reduce the likelihood of emails ending up in the trashcans of your subscribers.
Why subscribers trash emails
If you’re wondering why your emails are going to trash folders, it’s a good idea to try to understand your subscribers better. While emails remain one of the best ROI of marketing channels, not every campaign is equal.
Some of the reasons a subscriber may trash an email include:
- Send frequency: sending too many emails too frequently will make anyone feel overwhelmed. If you’re sending too many emails, you’re likely to frustrate subscribers and they’ll respond by trashing the email.
- Confusing send names: if a subscriber isn’t sure who the email is from and why they’re receiving it, they’ll flag it as junk.
- Poor content: subscribers want quality content from the emails they receive. If you’re sending the same email repeatedly, hoping for a different result, your open and conversion rates will suffer.
- Lack of personalization: people like to feel valued. If they provided their names when signing up for the list, you should be using this information in greetings, subject lines, or CTAs.
A personalized email campaign, on average, generates 122% of ROI compared to others.
Source: Campaign Monitor
How to prevent emails from going to the trash folder
To stop your emails from ending up in the trash folders of your subscribers, there are best practices you should follow. This includes being transparent about how often you’ll be sending emails, what type of content subscribers can expect, and having a consistent format for every type of campaign.
Some email campaign best practices include:
- Segmenting lists: segmenting your lists according to the content types is a great way to avoid frustrating subscribers. Some people only want to hear about product specials, while others will enjoy reading a newsletter. Giving your subscribers the option to choose what they receive will prevent your emails from going to a trash folder.
- Send batch emails: Instead of sending emails to all your subscribers at once, consider when they’ll receive them and how they’ll respond.
- Write great content: Whenever possible, use engaging subject lines and write great copy with your emails. By tracking open and conversion rates for every email, you can improve your campaigns over time and see what works for your subscribers.
How do you measure your success at preventing your emails going to the trash?
Platforms like Campaign Monitor help you track detailed statistics about your email campaigns. Keeping track of your open and conversion rates will help you determine if your campaign is engaging. If you notice your open rates are on the decline, it’ll be time to change your strategy.
Does it really matter?
Over time, the more emails end up in the trash folder, the more frustrated your subscribers will be. In order to create a positive relationship, you should send emails that’ll appeal to them, with personalized messaging and dynamic content.
What now?
Understanding what your subscribers want to see in their inboxes will ensure you run successful marketing campaigns. Using bulk emails may require less effort, but it’ll also reduce the likelihood of people engaging with your content. To get the best ROI from your campaigns, ensure you provide the content and personalization your subscribers expect.
Now that you have a better idea of how to prevent your emails from ending up in your subscribers’ trash folders, why not check out our collection of deliverability resources?