I collected 80 email newsletter signups at a festival by hand, but when I sent an email through Gmail, I got almost no response—even the prize winner didn't reply. What went wrong?

If you sent through personal Gmail and got zero responses from 65+ valid addresses, something technical likely went wrong. Gmail typically has excellent deliverability, so this is unusual. First, check if your Gmail account is in a ‘penalty box’ for some reason. Test by sending to a few friends using the same subject line to verify delivery. If you got about 15 bounces from illegible handwriting, that’s normal, but 65 good addresses should have yielded at least some response. There may be a technical issue with how the email was sent or your account status. Personal Gmail addresses (not domain-based) typically have the highest open rates, so investigate what happened technically before assuming it’s a content problem.

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Asked by an artist doing festivals · Answered by Patrick · Art Business Webinar · 2026-09-02