People open mail but don't click

Hi ProducerK,

Darn, I was actually going for a pre-geocities look.

I don't think you gave me enough credit, I've been involved in marketing a lot longer than Geocities has been around, so please don't compare me to those still wet behind the ears newcomers. Of course they didn't have websites back then, so this is a modern look for an old timer like me. I mean how are people going to know that you've been around for decades if your website doesn't look like it has been also, right?

The point is that marketing is a science that has been around a long time and there are well established methods for answering the questions the OP asked. The OP's post indicated that the basic marketing techniques designed to discover "why a person did, or did not buy" was not being utilized.

In my opinion there is a difference between selling and marketing, and it is all too common to see discussions here that indicate people are "selling" online but not actually "marketing". My comments were meant to benefit the entire community, and not aimed at just one person.

To be fair, the OP did mention that they were "measuring" which is great fundamental step toward crossing the divide from merely selling to actual marketing. However, the point of measuring is to analyze, and the point of analysis is to answer the question "why?". Marketing is a science and using the scientific method for testing must be done with a specific purpose in mind if it is to be useful.

The central question for most marketing analysis is typically aimed at answering the question "why do customers buy?". Or "why do some not buy?" which was essentially what the OP asked, don't you agree?

The most obvious answer is to "try marketing". After all, that is the central idea behind the science of marketing, is it not?

Regardless of what the OP knows about marketing, this is a public forum that is meant to be read by many people, presumably with various levels of knowledge, is that not true?

Why then would I assume that everyone reading this thread would know exactly what the science of marketing entails? Hence the Wikipedia link.

This is not a person to person interaction, this a public forum. I try to bare in mind that I am speaking to an audience of many readers, and generally do not answer questions as if it was a personal conversation between 2 private parties.

I suggest that we try to hold this discussion to a standard that one might expect for a public forum, and try to not make things personal.

I agree it could be a technical issue that has caused issues for the OP, however the question asked by the OP seemed much more general in nature, and not about a technical issue:

Wouldn't you agree?

Now what's wrong with using marketing science to answer the fundamental question that marketing science was invented to answer?

I have worked with hundreds of companies over the years and nearly every business owner, or sales manager, at some point asks essentially the same question posed by the OP. This is a centuries old question, at the core, and there is an answer that was designed by great minds, documented, evolved, and improved upon over many decades. It's called "marketing", and it applies to email marketing as much as any other technology.

Marketing isn't just merely a word, it is more than just a term that people often interchange with the word "selling". Marketing is a science, that includes many disciplines and methodologies all based on scientific principles. That was my point.

I am sorry, I realized it is 2017 and I should have phrased it for the younger folks that were born post common sense era. So please allow me to rephrase my answer:

You need to science the hell out of it.

And it that is still too outdated then you can just "Cash me ousside, how bout dah?



Don Burk

I think I can rule out 1, as links are bold and coloured.

2 I haven't yet thought about .. good point!

3 I will check from my seed list, another good point, I could have thought about this myself.

Thank you

Hi ProducerK,

I beg to differ.

The OP described a very specific anecdote, to ascribe motive for the question, however the question asked was a very general question indeed.

A general question begs a general answer.

Even so, my response included somewhat specific advice related to testing value propositions. While it was a short answer, I believe it was spot on.

Sorry, I forgot to link my previous answer to Wikipedia to provide more details, my bad.

Here are some links that may make my answer slightly less "vague". Starting with the most basic and moving towards the more advanced, please choose whatever level that lifts the fog of vagueness for you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_proposition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custom...ue_proposition
https://www.optimizely.com/optimizat...e-proposition/
https://www.marketingsherpa.com/arti...sition-testing

Choosing an effective value proposition has a tremendous effect on both click-through rates as well as conversion rates. It is, generally speaking, the first thing you should test and is frequently the element that provides highest payoff from conducting A/B Split tests. Ignore it at your own peril.

While it does seem to make sense that the same message that triggers an email open would trigger a click-through, that is often the case, however this various a lot expecially if you are using some of the latest click bait tactics theat tend to be highly deceptive an

HTH,

Don Burk