As a Productpreneur who is building a brand, there is a fine balance between educating your target audience and build brand awareness, and asking for the order.

You need both types of marketing in order to be successful, but with so many moving parts it can be difficult to hit the mark perfectly.

So, if things aren’t working as they should, how do you figure out the problem so you can fix it?

One of my students recently presented me with this question:

“I get great open rates and click through rates from my marketing emails, but when they get to my website they are not converting into sales. What’s going wrong?”

And I’m sure she’s not the only one experiencing this problem, right?

Read on for actionable advice and a free implementation guide you can download today.

Let’s diagnose the 6 email marketing mistakes that kill sales conversions.

6 Email Marketing Mistakes That Kill Sales Conversions

When your subscribers click through to your website are they:

a) Stopping there? or

b) Are they adding the product to their shopping cart but then not completing the checkout process?

If you answered (a) the issues could be one of the following:

1. The product offer is not clearly communicated

or there’s a mis-match between the topic of the email and the product or offer they clicked through to on the website.

Have you talked about a specific problem, product or solution in your email and then directed customers to click through to a category page on your website?

Don’t leave anything to chance – if you’re making a specific offer in an email it should click through to the exact product shop page on your website and the content on that shop page should reinforce what you introduced in the email.

2. You’re being too pushy with the buy-now messaging.

For example, if the email recipient is new to your email list and they’re in a nurturing sequence, they may not be ready to make a purchase decision just yet.

If this is the case, just badgering them with a discount and telling them to ‘shop now’ won’t work.

You need to introduce them to your brand, tell your brand story in a way that answers a customer’s unspoken question, “what’s in it for me?”

They want to be confident your products will solve their problem or meet their need.

You also need to think about establishing trust and reversing any perceived risk, such as by showing social proof and communicating things such as guarantees or free returns.

3. Something about the shop page is not compelling enough.

Take a good look at your product shop page on your website. Really scrutinise it objectively, from the point of view of a potential customer.

Images need to be high resolution and should include a mix of contextual as well as product shots.

(By contextual I mean – show the product in use. If your potential customers see an image with someone ‘just like them’ using your product in a real-life situation, it’s going to be a much more compelling proposition than a product image on a white background.)

Similarly with your text: don’t just speak about the products – product features are boring and not at all persuasive.

Speak to the benefits – what will your customers experience by using or consuming your product? What do your customers need to know, understand and believe in order to want your product?

Remember – people buy based on emotion and justify with logic. Keep this in mind when choosing images and words.

4. Call to action is not compelling or clear.

Sometimes this is a design issue – where is your Add to Cart button? What colour is it? Is it obvious on the page?

And sometimes it is a language issue – do you explicitly tell your website visitor exactly what to do next? Is there only ONE single call to action on the page? Be very, very clear with this – if your visitors are confused, they’ll click away very quickly.

If you answered (b) and your website visitors are adding products to their shopping cart but are not completing the checkout process, then you are not alone.

A recent study by Forrester Research shows that an average of 88% of online shoppers abandon their shopping cart and further research by SamCart indicates that as many as 92% of online business owners have no idea what their cart abandonment rates are.

Two strategies you can implement to mitigate shopping cart abandonment rates include:

1. Implement an effective abandon-cart automated email campaign.

Designed to entice shoppers back to complete their purchase, an abandon-cart email campaign should include a series of 2-4 emails.

These emails should be short and to the point, referencing the products in the shopping cart and the benefits the products would bring to the lives of your customers.

You can also include a special offer at this point, whether it’s a gift with purchase, a free shipping offer, or a coupon or discount.

I like to use the ‘High / Low Cart Value’ abandoned cart flow in Klaviyo, to send a free shipping coupon to low value carts and a discount coupon to the higher value carts.

The reason for this is: most people abandon their cart because of the shipping fee, but not if their order total is already above the free shipping threshold.

2. Review your shopping cart itself.

A high converting shopping cart should help your customers complete their purchase as quickly and simply as possible. If your shopping cart process takes too long, is too difficult or confusing, then you’ll definitely see a big drop-off of visitors who don’t complete their checkout.

I’m not going to go into an exhaustive list of characteristics of a great shopping cart – I’ll save that for another blog post – but here are a few to keep in mind:

  • Must be mobile responsive
  • Include a compelling one-sentence line of text about the product and its benefits (so visitors know they have added the right thing to their cart)
  • Include trust symbols (if you have a money back guarantee, mention that; if you have a security certificate and/or trusted merchant facility, mention those. Use symbols or logos for these elements where possible.)
  • Include a customer testimonial
  • Ask for as few details as possible – the fewer personal details someone has to fill out, the more likely they will be to complete the purchase.

Need some help selling more products in your online store?

Check out my FREE eBook and implementation guide, “How to Get Repeat Orders From Happy Customers”.

It includes a system for follow-ups that you can plug-and-play into your own business. Click the button below to download your copy instantly.

And for more help implementing a high converting marketing automation system in your business, check out my program Magnetic Website Formula.