Are Your Emails Driving Away Leads?

If you’ve been diligently getting permission to email customers and prospects, I salute you. When you build a list of email subscribers, you have a very valuable tool: a base of people who’ve invited you to talk to them. What better kind of audience is there for your marketing message?

But what a lot of beginning email marketers don’t realize is sometimes you can speed up your unsubscribe rate, totally by accident.

A Little Lesson On Accidental Unsubscribes

Unsubscribe links are standard issue in most emails — all responsible businesses do it, and depending on the number of emails you send, it can be illegal not to include one.

But if the only link in your email is the unsubscribe link, you could be in for some opt-out trouble.

Here’s what happened to me recently: I opened up an email from a local business I had given my address to. Inside was a special offer, which didn’t interest me, and a line of text that asked, “Want to shop more? You can visit our website.”

I clicked on the first fat blue link I saw after those words — in fact, it was the only link in the email. I didn’t even see what the link said — I just clicked. All I wanted to do was “shop more” as the email had so kindly suggested. Instead I landed on the business’s unsubscribe page, where I was immediately removed from their list.

I didn’t feel like digging around their website to sign up again after I’d been so thoughtlessly cast aside. I was receptive to their offers, but I won’t see them ever again.

My point: Studies show the first link in an email is the one that most people click on. Make sure the prominent links in your email offers promote the action you want your reader to take. Accidentally clicking the unsubscribe link is a worst-case scenario, but there are others almost as frustrating. If click-happy prospects land somewhere irrelevant to your offer – like your “something for everybody” homepage, they may never bother opening another email from you again.

They’re Online, So Give Them What They Want Online

Then there’s the other side of email marketing: the follow-up message. A lot of agents send out emails, but don’t know what kind of call to action to give prospects besides “call me at…” or “reply to this email.”

While these work for super-motivated leads who want to start a dialog with you, it leaves nothing for the prospects who are on the fence, and just want to learn more. And if someone opens your email and doesn’t find an easy way to get to the information they want, they may never open another one from you again, and you lose their potential business.

An easy way to cultivate these “almost” leads is to give them a no-risk way to explore their options. If you’ve got a section on your website devoted to explaining insurance, add a line of text like, “Want to learn more about your insurance options? Get your questions answered at www.yourwebsite.com.”

An alternative is using an email autoresponder to market to all your leads. An email autoresponder with built-in individual health quoting automatically sends your leads a personalized email, complete with a big, impossible-to-miss button that says, “View Proposal”. With one click your prospect can view rates and read up on plan benefits online – and you get an email alert that they’re browsing. It’s effortless email marketing, and it gives prospects an easy way to take action.

It doesn’t take a lot to turn off your email subscribers. If you’re sending an ad, carefully plot out where you want people to click, and make sure you’re directing them to a page that deals specifically with your offer. If you’re sending a follow-up message, give your prospects a variety of ways to take action.

Jeremiah Desmarais and his team have won 3 awards in 2006 for their marketing initiatives that touch Norvax' client base and carrier relationships on a daily basis. He is author of several white papers, and has been a contributor to the Agent's Sales Journal, Health Insurance Underwriter as well as a guest speaker at various carrier events and workshops. He is a member of the Society of Industry Leaders. He welcomes feedback at jdesmarais@norvax.com