Having a non-responsive list can be a marketers’ worst nightmare. If you have put lots of work and dedication in building your list, there is nothing more frustrating than having a really low open rate. There are oodles of reasons why people wouldn’t read your emails, but they all boil down to one simple fact: your readers don’t like it. This could be because you are making one of these mistakes:

You aren’t following a schedule

If you publish a newsletter, you must set a frequency and follow it religiously—be it once a month, twice a week or five times a day. The call is yours, but set up a schedule and stick to it. If your business is a one-man-show and you have to go on vacation, make sure you schedule your posts in advance and have your mailing service deliver it as per the initial schedule. You don’t see a TV show cancelled on CBS because the moderator caught the flu—why should you cancel your newsletter if you are flying to Bahamas for the next two weeks?

You don’t deliver what you promised

If you advertise your readers ‘tips on how to feed your parrot’ on your newsletter signup page, then your emails should tell them how to do it and not show videos of your Yaki pet flying around your living room.

Your content must be useful and in line with what people expect from your newsletter. Getting a reader to sign up with your mailing list shouldn’t be the end goal of your campaign. Don’t rely on your readers staying with you forever—you can lose your subscribers in the blink of an eye.

You don’t have a call to action

“Call to action” is a marketing/advertising concept where you ask your audience to do something. It should be smoothly integrated in your text so that it answers the unspoken question “Ok, that was interesting. Now what?”

You need your readers to respond to whatever you have said, but you need to ask them to do it. An example of a call to action would be to end your email with something in the line of “If you like our newsletter, hit the Reply button and tell us why!” Want them to click a link? Ask them. Do you want them to buy? Tell them! Don’t assume that your readers will know what you have in mind and act accordingly, be specific and tell what you want them to do.

Overall poor message

Just because you are a great manager or an outstanding public speaker it doesn’t mean that your thoughts laid on paper have the same effect as your voice. A lot of people have a hard time expressing their opinions in writing even though they could easily put their message through in an offline conference. If you feel that your newsletters don’t have the desired impact, try to get a professional ghostwriter to write a few emails for you.

Newsletters require a lot of work and you should be prepared to learn and improve your skills, day by day. Do it the unprofessional way and you will be basically throwing money out the window. Try to avoid the mistakes above and you should see and increase in your response rate.