The majority of us use email marketing these days. There are seven email marketing mistakes that most people don’t realize that they are making . Marketers must stay ahead of the curve in order to reap the benefits of an email campaign. Despite emails being around for nearly 20 years, many marketers still make the same mistakes.
The first mistake is poor content. A poorly written email will damage your reputation, making it much more difficult to get respondents to open your emails again. Ask yourself a few questions about your email:
- is the content personalized for your target audience
- do you have a concise, engaging subject line
- is the subject line free from spamming type words
- is the email free of typos and grammatical errors
- if you are linking to an external asset have you included at least 2 to 3 links
- finally does the email provide value to your reader.
The second mistake is not having a call to action. Every message you send out should have a clear and concise mission. Maybe you driving traffic back to your website? Perhaps you are promoting a white paper or a trial download? Attracting attention for a web video or maybe engaging contacts for your sales team?
Your call to action, whether it be a link to a website, an email address or a downloadable action, should be placed in several areas throughout the message and should stand out from the rest of the email design.
The third mistake people make with their email marketing is in the design.
Email messages render differently in each mail client so be sure to test your design in a number of clients before sending it out. Avoid garish colors and fonts that are hard to read. Many email clients have images turned off by default, so don’t include any copy or call to actions in your images that are not also included in the body of your message
Your email design should be consistent with each message you send out. If you are planning to make changes, get the input of your subscribers first by testing your designs.
The fourth mistake in email marketing is partnering up with the wrong email service provider. This is the gateway to your audience so choose your ESP wisely. Sign on with the ESP that aligns with your business needs and your marketing goals and one that has the infrastructure to support your growth. A great ESP will have an excellent customer service reputation, be Can Spam compliant and offer a free trial, good reporting functionalities, list segmentation and the ability to A/B test.
The fifth mistake in email marketing is accurate data. Sending a well-crafted email marketing message to a poorly maintained database is just like burning your money. In today’s business world people don’t stay in the same position at the same company for as long as they used to. Your data needs to be cleaned and updated regularly to ensure that your database is accurate. Sending messages to emails that no longer exist can hurt your mailing reputation and damage your relationship with your ESP.
The sixth email marketing mistake is improper list segmentation. When it comes to emails, one size does not fit all. Sending one email to your entire database provides no value to your individual subscribers. By setting up segmentation rules and specific persona that your email content and design is targeting, you will see higher click through rates and more engaged customers.
The final mistake in email marketing is ignoring cadence. If you flood the inbox, your readers will unsubscribe and if you send too infrequently your readers will lose interest. When a subscriber opts into your email communications, be sure to set an expectation of how many messages they will be receiving. Above all, make sure each email message contains a strong call to action and provides value to the recipient.
By following these seven simple tips you will receive higher open and click through rates, a lower unsubscribe rate, and ultimately, more engaged sales ready customers.