There are many common email marketing mistakes that marketers make, and not because they don’t know what they’re doing. Email marketing mistakes are made simply because there are many things you need to check over and over again, because some mistakes are deadly for success.
We’ve arranged some things that you should double — if not triple or quadruple — check before you send out your campaign.
1. No permission for sending e-mails
Yeah, some people still don’t get it.
E-mail marketing isn’t regular marketing. You can’t expect to sell a product by annoying people, nor by sending spam (which is illegal, by the way). If you don’t have explicit permission to mail to the people on the list then don’t e-mail them. You shouldn’t buy or rent an e-mail lists either.
2. Sending out rushed campaigns
Most marketers know how to write attractive content, but time is a beast, and it can mess up even the most intelligent campaign. You cannot allow to send content before it’s ready for the client, and you absolutely need to write decent “Subject” lines, which brings us to the next common mistake.
3. Botched “From” and “Subject” fields
These two fields are easily the most important variable that influences the open rate. Poorly chosen email “From” and “Subject” lines are the only few things which bring measurable results… you know how to make these fields work, don’t you? Just be carefull not to send from “no-reply@” emails etc., people like persolaization.
4. Non-targeted or irrelevant content
The word “targeted” sounds a bit complicated. But basically what sending targeted content means in e-mail marketing is, well, sending content you said you’d send. You should also use all the tools at your disposal: don’t be afraid to experiment a little and segment the users.
5. Sending bad content at a bad time
This mistake is as common as it is relative. Bad content means that users will most likely unsubscribe if they utterly dislike your content. Grammar errors and missing links will make you look unprofessional. A bad sending time will make the users skip the e-mail altogether. A good time to send e-mails is, as a rule, between Monday to Thursday. Always be weary about how often you send the e-mails, too.
6. Too many graphics
Yes, graphics are what attract attention in e-mails, but keep in mind that they are disabled altogether for Gmail, and do not show up in a number of e-mail clients automatically, if you are not a trusted sender. Furthermore, too many graphics increase the loading time — that, in turn, means that many readers will not read it thoroughly.
7. No call to action
Believe it or not, people often are so hyped up about their campaign that they forget to do their best to increase conversions. No email call to action means little, if any conversions. Make your wants clear and simple to the readers.
8. No unsubscribe link
Like #1, this relates to the CAN-SPAM act and appeals to humanity of marketing. Not only dismissing the unsubscribe link is illegal. It’s very bad for your brand, and such a practice can get you blacklisted (unable to send e-mails at all) in a breeze.
9. Not doing anything with the list
Well, “not doing anything” is not a mistake, as nothing is done. However, not doing anything leads to an awful lot of bad things–users will simply forget you if you’re inactive. To recover an old list, you have to remind the users about your existence with a “reminder e-mail”. In most cases you’ll have to lose at least 30% of your subscribers.
10. Using e-mail marketing only for e-mail marketing
Encourage the users to provide feedback; encourage the users to contact you directly. Why not include links to your company’s profiles in social media sites? This isn’t what every contemporary business does. It’s what the every contemporary client expects.
The consequences to making mistakes in email marketing are much worse than with other types of marketing.
A bad “Subject” field can botch the entire campaign; too frequent e-mails and irrelevant content can give ground to spam complaints (utterly bad); and sending e-mail to strangers is all but a business suicide.
E-mail marketing is a fragile tool, which can yield great returns, but breaks easily. Don’t be scared to try and use it to the fullest potential–whilst still remembering that there are boundaries that needn’t to be crossed.
