Small Biz Bee: 5 Reasons Why Your Email Marketing Is Not Working

As Smallbizbee.com has grown over the past 10 months, so has the number of emails in my inbox.

A good number of those emails are forms of marketing, and almost all of them miss the mark with me.

Email marketing can be an extremely powerful and effective way to reach your customers - if done correctly.

Reasons Your Email Marketing Isn't Working
Now, while I'm not claiming to be an email marketing expert, I can tell you why those who have marketed to me have nothing to show for their efforts. Here are the top five mistakes I see them making

1. No Relationship Built
Email marketing works best when the person recieving the email feels like they know you, trust you, and you have a relationship built with them to some degree
We read email from people we know, and skim or delete email from people we don't. Simple as that.

Business is built around relationships, with relationships come trust, and with trust comes sales. For some reason email marketers, and business using email to communicate with their target market forget this.

2. No "Pull"
There has to be a reason to keep reading, a pull for the reader to continue.
Unless you are sending me an email at the exact moment I am looking to buy what you're selling, just saying "Hey you - buy my stuff", isn't going to work. There's no pull.

The worst offenders will not only be lacking a pull, but will go on for 1000 words without one, essentially repeating over and over again why I should buy their stuff.

Give me a reason to keep reading, tell me a story, give me value, show me how you'll solve my problems, keep me interested in what you have to say. (more)