Given the wealth of information available online, building strong and meaningful relationships with customers proves to be more and more important. Email marketing gives you one of the most personal methods for doing so. For one, it is amazingly cost effective. With a ROI of up to 4300% (according to the Direct Marketing Association) done right, email more than pays for itself.
There are some rookie mistakes everybody makes and then there are the mistakes we all make. Even stuff like using an unprofessional reply-to address can get you in trouble for spamming. At first glance harmless, it is the little things that may cost you your reputation, clients and entire email campaign. They say ‘The devil is in the details’ for a reason. So before you start blasting campaigns, check out these common mistakes that everybody.
Bad spelling and grammar
This one is a no brainer yet one of the most common offences marketers (myself including) commit. It is surprising how even though we are all pretty familiar with basic spelling and grammar, we all have spell check on our devices and we re-read an email 5 times before we send it, somehow silly mistakes still manage to slip by.
What does it say about you and your business if you can’t get e few sentences right? The reader may not even notice, but this is not something you should count on.
If it happens, it happens, it’s not the end of the world. But to make sure you never send badly spelt and grammatically incorrect content always proofread. If you have the time, I would advise you ask someone else to proof read it too. Sometimes if you go over the same piece of text over and over again, you simply cannot see it properly. Ask a colleague to double check it for you. Can’t go wrong with another set of eyes re-reading our message before you press send.
Boring Subject Line
Many underestimate the power of subject lines. People will often determine if your email is worth opening and reading just by looking at your subject line. And what is the point of sending a beautifully designed email filled with awesome content if won’t even get opened?
So to improve your open rates do spend some time on your subject line. It should a well-thought-through attention grabbing and concise headline. Don’t go overboard with the wording, as most devices only allow for the display of 5 to 7 words of your subject line.
As a rule of thumb, shy away from generic slogans like FREE, SALE and NEWS as those would not only make your email look tacky and get deleted, but chances are it would get picked up and registered as spam.
No personalization
Speaking about subject lines, a study conducted by Marketing Sherpa found that personalized subject lines had 17.36% higher open and click-through rates than a non-personalized emails. See where I’m getting with this one? Personalization is the key to email marketing success.
Then again, it never ceases to amaze me how I still receive emails addressed to Dear Sir/Madam. You don’t even know my name or you just couldn’t be bothered to personalize? Either way, those emails get deleted straight away!
So do make use of your database and personalize the email but also the content of the actual email. If you could, include the receiver’s name, the name of the business they work for etc. Of course it would all depend on the content and subject of your email, but as a general rule the more personalized an email is, the better the response to it. Try it for yourself and let me know how you get on.
Not having permission
This is one of the biggest No-No’s of email marketing; sending emails without permission. If you are sending communications to people, you have got to have permission full stop. If right now you are thinking ‘Yes, but…’, ‘What if…’ and ‘Well, what about…’, stop what you are doing as chances are you are sending emails without permission. Don’t try to trick the system or buy your way out of it. If you want email success and business success for that matter, your only option is to take the high road and collect emails for yourself.
Start building up your database by putting a sign-up form on your website and social media accounts, collect emails in person by asking people on networking events or people who pop in your shop if they would like to receive communications from you. Need more help growing your email list? Why not read this.
Not serving mobile users
Not serving mobile usersMobile is a huge part of our lives. There is no denying it. As a recent research found, nearly half of all emails are now being opened on mobile devices. So is your email mobile friendly? Here are a few things to consider:
- Use shorter paragraphs rather than big chunks of text.
- Make links big enough so that people can click on them with one finger
- Use high quality images
Always make sure your emails read well on different devices. How? Just send yourself a test and open it on different devices with various screens – PC, tablet, mobile phone etc.
These are the five most common mistakes committed by people using email marketing. Avoid them, and your email campaign will be so much more successful and your open and click-through rates will go through the roof. So tell me, which one of these errors are you guilty of?
