Email Marketing Mistakes
You could be making some major email marketing mistakes without even realizing it. Email marketing should be an essential part of your overall strategy for your website.
Not only does it enable you to stay in touch with your customers, but it also enables you to convert other subscribers into customers too. There are so many benefits of email marketing that you would be crazy to not try it and many eCommerce retailers swear by it.
The problem is that when people first try their hand at email marketing they are very likely to commit some crucial errors.
This is largely due to the fact that they do not perform any research on how to do email marketing and just simply start sending emails once they have built a list of subscribers.
This isn’t to say that this doesn’t work, but taking the time to learn about email marketing could give you positive results sooner without having to make bad errors along the way. So, before you get started, take a look at some of the biggest email marketing mistakes you could make.
Common Email Marketing Mistakes
Too Much Happening
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Cramming an email with many calls to action will generally not increase conversions. You’re basically throwing stuff at a wall and hoping something sticks if you do this. Try to focus your message on a single call to action and repeat it throughout the message.
Unfortunately, this tactic can not be applied in all industries. Many eCommerce websites send emails to their clients advising them of new products or multiple offers. The key to driving conversations with this type of mass mail is to address a specific topic and show the content in an attractive way.
ASOS is an excellent example of a fashion company that has been successful with it. The design of the email is clean, with many blank spaces, and focusing on a subject; labels, for example, and directly linking to a page focused on labels to make it easy for the subscriber.
It then goes further and informs the subscriber of why ASOS is beneficial to them by stating that they have no taxes or duties*, free delivery*, free returns, and a mobile app to make shopping online easier.
They finish off with links to help and contact pages, the compulsory unsubscribe link, and social media icons for their brand pages.
Not Having Call to Actions
What’s the point in sending out emails that don’t actually get the user to do anything?
You may think that an email newsletter is just that; about news. But it’s not.
They can be about anything, whether it’s to push your products, offer coupon codes, or to promote your blog posts. Whatever it’s about, there should be a call to action that gets the user to do something.
Even if you’re just sending out an email to give them a tiny bit of important news, get them back onto your website somehow with something relevant.
Bad Linking
Imagine this: You receive a promotional email with a limited time offer, click on “buy now” and a generic home page appears in which you have to search for the offer.
The most probable thing is that at some point you have to re-read the email to check again what the offer was.
Chances are that you lose interest as soon as you get to the home page and have to start looking around.
To avoid this happening to you and lower the abandonment rate, make it so that your email recipients are directed to the specific page on your website that you want them to perform an action on.
If you want the user to purchase a specific product, then link to that product page so the user can get there in one click.
If you want them to read a blog post you just created, then directly link to that blog post.
Your List is Not Current
This is a common problem with many companies. They have a huge database of potential customers who are sent a massive email blast, but barely anyone opens it. And this is not because the email had a bad subject line.
The key to an effective email marketing campaign is not the number of subscribers, but the quality of those subscribers and the decisions they make when opening your email. You should think about cleaning your list periodically and eliminate those contacts that are inactive.
But do not rush and begin to erase your oldest contacts, consider launching a re-capture campaign to call the attention of old contacts (all those who have not opened or clicked on your emails for a long time).
You can also ask your subscribers if they wish to remain on your mailing list using the simple “unsubscribe” option. If they still do not respond, delete the contact. Having a list with many irrelevant or inactive subscribers is not good for your email marketing analytics and will mess up your true statistics.
Remember that sending a campaign to 10,000 active subscribers who are interested in your services will bring you more benefits than if you bomb 20,000 people who subscribed to your mailing list at some time in the past and now delete your emails instantly, or what is worse, they mark them as spam because they are no longer interested in your offers.
Your Content is Not Relevant
Currently, the web is full of content and it is increasingly difficult to make a difference among such a crowd. The best way to get your customers attention and improve the opening percentage is to provide them with the information they really want, not what you think they’re looking for!
Your content can also be relevant by keeping up with the times. If it’s a holiday, make content around it and send out an email. You’re much more likely to get your subscribers to perform an action if they’re provided with a relative incentive.
Not Planning
Plan out every email you send and don’t send them out for the sake of it.
Every email must have a purpose and goal.
Think of the goal you want the email to achieve, such as selling a particular item, or getting more eyeballs on a blog post, and then offer real value to the reader as well in the same email.
The more you plan and think about everything that the user can or will do, the more you can optimize your emails to achieve results. Also, there are certain times for email marketing that are more effective than others, so be sure you send your emails at appropriate times of the day.
So, think you’re ready to start sending out emails? Make sure you have a look at these email marketing tips before you do so you can really optimize your campaigns to get the most out of them.