A high bounce rate on sales emails can be an incredibly frustrating problem to challenge as a sales person. Knowing that all your effort in crafting your message came to nothing because the reader never cleared the first sentence can have a harsh impact on your morale, never mind the direct impact to your bottom line. Fortunately, bounce rate in sales emails is perhaps one of the most studied problems in sales, so there’s a wealth of information we can use to craft solutions. In this article, we’ll discuss five common reasons why you might see a high bounce rate on your sales emails–along with a few tips on countering those common issues.

Weak Buildup.

The vast majority of the time, when you see a high bounce rate it’s because you don’t lay any groundwork before your sales emails. This is, of course, not always something you can solve, depending on your sales methods, but it’s something you must understand as a problem nonetheless. People don’t read emails they aren’t expecting. They give them a short glance with barely any interest, and then send them to the garbage bin. 

Your goal should be to lay some amount of groundwork, to set some level of expectation in your recipient. This can mean building their interest with a website and having them opt in to an email list, an exchange on the phone, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or any of a number of other methods. But you can’t expect a low bounce rate if you’re sending cold emails. If you can’t build prospects up, you’ll have to make up for that failing elsewhere.

Stale List.

If you’re utilizing a well-developed mailing list, but your bounce rate has started climbing, it’s possible your list has gone stale–the people you’re messaging just don’t want to hear from you anymore. You can take a few routes here, depending on the nature of your business. You can either try to reinvigorate your mailers and regain the attention and excitement from your current list, or redouble your efforts to infuse new blood into your list and get your messages in front of new eyes. Either way, this comes down to a problem of boring your audience; something you’ll want to avoid whether you’re dealing with lists or individuals.

Inconsistent Contact.

People pay attention to email they expect, as we discussed earlier. Part of that anticipation includes how consistently you contact your prospect or prospects. If your sales emails don’t have any rhyme or reason to when you send them, your bounce rate will climb through the roof in no time. Stick to a schedule, and you’ll see much better results.

Weak Copy.

Poorly written copy will ruin otherwise perfect sales emails in a heartbeat. No one wants to read shoddy writing, no matter how good your deal is or how well you’ve prepped him or her for the message. Copy is also one of the few places you can combat bounce rate if you’re cold emailing prospects–you don’t just need good copy in that situation, you need outstanding copy that makes people stop and take notice, because you can’t get them to stop any other way. Develop your writing skills or hire an expert–don’t slack.

Poor Design.

Similar to the copy issue, a bad design is worse than no design at all. If you’re sending an unstyled text-only email, the copy can at least carry its own weight, but if you’re getting fancy you need to do it right. That probably means paying someone to get it right for you. This is possibly your strongest tool in combating bounce rate in cold emails, but it’s not something an amateur can handle–and chances are, you don’t have the time to invest in learning design.