9 Email Marketing Mistakes To Stop Doing Immediately
There is plenty of advice circling the internet on exactly how to send good marketing emails. But what constitutes as a bad email? Do you know the things to avoid? Here are 9 email marketing mistakes you should stop doing immediately:
1. Overhyping the Subject
Writing headlines takes a lot of focus. When someone adds too much hype to a subject line, rather than attracting more clicks the email might actually drive people away. If subjects are too exaggerated or overly enthusiastic, the email recipient might automatically treat that email like spam and mark you as a spammer in his or her inbox.
The goal should be to encourage people to click on an email, but you have to be careful how you do it. Making headlines really is a fine art mixed with a little bit of science.
2. Sending from a “noreply” Email Address
Nothing can be more frustrating than receiving a generic email from an admin or a “noreply” email. It simply leaves an impression that the sender doesn’t want to talk to the customer, even if the email clearly asks for the customer to call for more information. Other issues include:
- Spam complaints from users
- You’ll limit your ability to bypass spam filters
- You may be damaging your brand
- You may be missing out on sales opportunities!
Subtle little details like these can make a huge difference in how successful your email marketing campaign is.
3. Focusing Email on the Product and Not on the Customer
It is important that emails focus on the customer more than on the product. Marketing teams clearly want to sell their product, and they’ll make every effort to do this; however, they cannot leave the customer’s needs out of this process.
To create solid growth, it is important to connect with the customer on a direct and often personal level. This establishes a relationship and contributes to a feeling of trust in your company and your products. The more personalized the email is, the more the customer feels like a real customer and not just another address in your address book of people to blast with emails.
4. Using Too Many Calls-To-Action
Having a Call-To-Action is important to get a positive response from your customers. They encourage people to respond by signing up for more information, checking out a website, or even purchasing a new product. However, too many calls-to-action can be dissuasive and overwhelming to the user. If a customer feels overwhelmed or pushed by the seller, the email might actually trigger a response in the customer similar to how spam can turn customers away and make them suspicious.
Having a solid call-to-action with a link that brings the customer to additional valuable content will help solidify a sale without overwhelming anyone.
5. Email is Too Lengthy
Emails that are too long simply turn customers away. Unless something is so enthralling and right up the customer’s alley, they are likely not going to commit much time to reading an email from an unknown contact.
Rather than spend hours crafting an email with significant length, focus on getting your point across succinctly and effectively. This will not only save you time, but it will save your customers time and reduce the frustration they feel when trying to pinpoint certain bits of information from your email.
Looking at the layout of the text is also useful as certain techniques can help draw a customer’s eyes to important details. The rest of the information can and will be scanned unless they are intrigued enough to read the email completely.
6. Emails are Inconsistently Sent
If you really want to build a relationship with your customers, it is important to develop a consistent pattern of communication. You have to balance between sending too many emails and sending too few of them. The more consistent you are, the more reliable you become – and also the more dedicated to your customer you seem. These are important little details that can make or break a sale or a deal.
Tip: Consistent emails are key to staying at the forefront of your customers’ minds. One simple way to manage frequency is to actually put that part in the hands of your customers: give them an option of how frequently they want emails. They know, of course, they can opt out at any time too, giving them a sense of more power and freedom in your alerts.
7. No Clear Point To The Email
In discussing the length of an email, there is also the need to be succinct. This isn’t just about the email’s length, but it’s also about choosing your words carefully to deliver a point as quickly and effectively as possible. Writing emails that are overly wordy is another one of the common email marketing mistakes.
User behavior shows that this is how your customer will want to read your email: open it, get to the point, and either choose to engage or walk away.
8. Email Is Not Sent Often Enough
When you fret over how often to send an email (email send frequency), you want to be sure not to overwhelm a customer. But if you never send an email because of this fear, your customer may completely forget you were ever contacting him or her in the first place. Be certain not to send emails too often to your customers, but remember that under-emailing them might create more work for you, as you will need to spend time reminding them why they signed up in the first place.
9. No Segmented Email List
Segmenting emails by basis of things like geography or interests can be important to pitching the best sale. Simply “blasting” emails can have an adverse effect. Consider how your emails are going out and attempt to personalize them to appeal the most to your various customer groups. This also maximizes the kind of relationship you have with your clients.
Mailchimp studied the effect of segmented lists on email marketing effectiveness and the numbers are astounding:
Email can be an excellent way to attract traffic, but you have to be careful to do it in the right way. Make sure you’re avoiding these 9 email marketing mistakes and you’ll give yourself a better chance of succeeding!
