Email marketing can be a very effective strategy if it is employed correctly. Too many marketers shoot themselves in the foot and can harm their brand’s reputation and effectiveness by making common and preventable email marketing mistakes.
1. Too Long or Too Short
Email length is important to keeping the reader both engaged and adequately informed. A good marketing email is concise, but also informative. It needs to get its important points across before the reader clicks away because of boredom.
Subscriber preference can be determined with some A/B testing, sending out a shorter and a longer version of the same email. Testing will reveal which is more effective in terms of clickthrough rates, unsubscribes, and conversions.
2. Mass Emails
One of the most common and costly email marketing mistakes is sending out mass emails to the entire contact list.
Marketing is much more effective when it’s targeted. The best way to carry out a targeted email marketing email is by segmenting the list into different groups. These groups should be determined based on factors such as past purchases, preferences, and demographics.
Content should be changed up based on the different segments so that it is interesting and relevant to the people reading it.
3. Lacking Consistency
Sending emails too often can annoy subscribers, but it’s important not to send emails too in-frequently either. A reasonable schedule should be established and followed.
If emails are not sent regularly, subscribers can forget about them and stop bothering to open them, or just unsubscribe.
A good email marketing campaign should keep the brand on a subscriber’s mind to keep them receptive to offers that come up. People like things that are predictable, and they tend to avoid things that are unpredictable.
4. Problems with Images
Images can be helpful in email marketing, but sometimes images don’t render properly. When this happens it really wrecks the effectiveness of the email, especially if the email was dependent on the images for its messaging and appeal.
5. Lacking Focus
Every email that is sent should have a purpose, otherwise they are just a waste of time and an annoyance to the subscriber.
Sometimes people have a schedule they feel they need to follow, which results in them sending out emails that are irrelevant, and this results in lost subscribers.
Before writing or sending anything, a good email marketer should know exactly why they are sending out the email.
6. Including Broken Links
It’s important to check that all links are working and sending the user to the correct landing page. Every link should be checked before an email is sent out.
One simple strategy that helps avoid this problem is to send an email to a coworker and have them test out the links and make sure everything is working properly.
7. Sending Emails That Are Inaccurate and Not Reader Friendly
Clear communication is paramount to email marketing. Writing clearly and accurately is important for email marketers and to ensure you represent a professional image.
Many people struggle with writing, however, there are many online tools and services available to help ensure your writing is grammatically correct and that the content is original.
8. Forgetting to Optimise for Mobile
Most people check their email on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, so forgetting to optimise for mobile can be a disaster for an email marketing campaign.
Responsive email templates can help marketers avoid making this mistake. Testing out emails and opening them on a variety of different devices and operating systems before sending them out to a subscriber list is another good strategy. Failing to do proper testing can result in losing subscribers on certain kinds of devices.
Conclusion
Email marketing campaigns are not about sending out as many emails to as many people as possible.
They need to be strategic, targeted, and tested. An email marketing campaign can be a huge asset to a brand, but only if it’s done correctly.
If you are looking for some more information about email marketing, check out these other Marketing.com.au articles:
- Choosing Email Marketing Software
- The Pros and Cons of Different Advertising Mediums
- Four Simple Steps to Market Your Small Business for Free
Freddie Tubbs
Latest posts by Freddie Tubbs (see all)
- 8 Email Marketing Mistakes You’ll Want To Avoid - August 16, 2018