Why are Marketing Emails Not Read 75% of the Time?

Marketing emails are a complicated beast. They have an increasingly short shelf life, are often ignored, and it is so hard to capture people’s attention with them. Many people take one look at what they could potentially deem a ‘spam’ or ‘unimportant’ email and delete it straight away. So, why do many people have this attitude towards marketing emails? A recent study unearthed that almost 75% of emails are immediately ignored, without even a second glance taken at its contents. And even when read, only 50% of what people read in them they actually consider helpful. It could easily be concluded from this data that marketing emails are useless and unhelpful; a piece of the past that needs not be carried on. However, maybe we are just missing what I have defined as the ‘Three R’s’. Relevance, Research, and Respect. Hopefully this deep dive into those topics will allow you to start building emails that actually get read.

1: Relevance (or an absence thereof)

Relevance is a funny word to try and examine when it comes to advertising; because the whole point of advertising is trying to convince the consumer that what you are promoting is relevant to them. Because of this, the phrase is often overused in marketing, but it is relevant when it comes to targeted marketing emails. If 75% of people are not even reading the emails, you might wonder if it takes the necessity out of email marketing completely; and my answer is no. People are currently not paying much attention to marketing emails they receive because they are used to them being irrelevant.

However, if marketing emails become more relevant; people might start to read them. “It is all about changing perception. If people believe that the content they are being sent could possibly be relevant to them, they may begin to pay more attention to it. The key is tailoring marketing to different people; this is called relevant marketing segmentation and targeting,” says Angela F. Hedges, a writer at Business Essay and StateOfWriting.

2: Research

Research is the key to success in marketing. To deliver your consumers what they want, you need to be able to get into their heads. The 75% of marketing emails that do not get read are from companies who are not accurately researching their customer base or using ‘scatter targeting’ instead of concentrated and research-based targeting. One single email sent out to every potential customer will not portray the right outlook to any person; and will certainly not be effective in communication.

It is crucial to understand your customer base, as aforementioned; and research is key to this. Your business needs to understand how your customer thinks and feel, and what will capture their immediate attention in an email headline. No consumer is going to open an email without a tagline that does not, first of all, relate to them; and second of all, capture their attention.

3: Respect (for the message and the recipient)

This last R is a strange one to understand. Respect is important in any customer-to-business or business-to-business interaction. It is crucial that your marketing messages have respect for your company, your message, and your customer base all in one. This is portrayed in multiple ways. Spelling, grammar, punctuation, and the overall polish of your communications communicate an air of respect in and of themselves. It is fairly easy to spell correctly and ensure there is a general polish as the overall outlook of your email. “Even if this polish stuff is not your forte, it is easy and not expensive to hire people who do this kind of thing very well. This element of care portrays to your audience that you care about what you are marketing to them; and this will, in turn, increase your audience’s likelihood to care about the information that you are portraying to them,” explains Michael C. Hasbrouck, a writer at Paper Fellows and OXEssays.

People in positions of high authority will appreciate the extra care you’re your team has put into its marketing and be much more likely to care about it because of that. Though many people struggle with marketing emails and worry that the importance of email marketing is in decline; I highly disagree. The three R’s that I have examined, relevance, research, and respect, all play a key role in the visibility and effectiveness of marketing emails in the future.