When executed properly, email marketing campaigns can indeed be extremely productive as well as cost-effective. However, for email marketing campaigns to be successful they need to be well thought-out so that common mistakes that can destroy the effectiveness of the campaign are not made. Some top tips on email marketing mistakes to avoid:
Sending Spam
Unless your mailing list comprises subscribers who have opted-in to your email campaign and specifically agreed to receive your emails, your emails will be considered as spam and as a violation of the law. It is not permissible to buy email marketing lists or compile these lists by techniques like web harvesting and start shooting off emails. In the long run sending spam can irreversibly damage the reputation and profitability of your business.
Poor Content
You need to make sure that the marketing emails you send are relevant to the subscriber and deliver information that is valuable and of his interest. Emails that have very poor or even non-existent content and are just vehicles for advertising are not appreciated by receivers who will generally delete them immediately on receipt or apply filters that will send them to the trash bin automatically.
Content Has Errors
The number of marketing emails that are generated and transmitted in a hurry and without taking care to check for errors is astonishing. When a subscriber receives emails that are replete with spelling mistakes, poor grammar, and language, dead links, etc. they get the impression that the business that is responsible for sending the emails is not professional and should not be trusted. Errors in email content are very easy to fix with careful editing and there’s absolutely no excuse for not carrying out multiple reviews before the email is sent off.
No Testing For Response
Since email marketing campaigns involve a lot of effort and time to execute it is necessary for them to be tested so that the emails can be optimized in multiple ways for better response. With the help test emails, your emails can be sent out at different times of the day with different ‘From’ and ‘subject’ lines as well as different graphics and designs, and content, to see which get the best click-through rates and conversions. Once you are able to get a fix on the optimum mix, you should stick to it for some time. However, always be open to experimentation so that you can latch on to changing customer behavior in time.
Cumbersome Sign-Up Process
When you want subscribers to sign-up for email campaigns or product updates you should make the process of opting-in very simple and quick. Even if you are interested in getting to know the profile of your subscriber, you should not make them fill up lengthy forms and click on multiple pages because a long sign-up process tends to irritate potential subscribers and they are very likely to abandon the process mid-way. The most effective way is to just ask for the email address and their permission and get started. The subscriber details can always be gathered at a later stage.
Poor Choice of ‘From’ and ‘Subject’ Lines
Whether email subscribers will click on a particular email to open it or not depends on how clearly they are able to understand the identity of the email sender and whether the contents are to their interest. This makes the role of ‘from’ and ‘subject’ lines extremely important. You should ensure that the ‘From’ field mentions the name of the company or the newsletter so that the subscriber knows exactly from where the email is coming. The subject line should be able to capture the most important point of interest to the subscriber so that they are encouraged to open it.
Conclusion
Some mistakes may seem insignificant to you, but note that these small mistakes can ruin your email marketing campaign. In order to make an email marketing campaign successful you not just need to invest money, but also follow certain rules to increase conversion rates.
Sanz Teoh
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