Almost all brands and businesses have email marketing campaigns and strategies. No surprise there! After all, according to Statista, there are 3.7 billion global email users. This number is predicted to grow to 4.1 billion users by 2021. There is no way a business can avoid opting for email marketing services. Tell us one thing, how many emails did you receive this morning? I am sure, at least 5 of them. In such a situation, email marketing is less of an option and more of a need for marketing. But, you need to distinguish yourself from the others. It is important that every penny that is spent is giving you a high ROI. Otherwise, what is the point? What is the point of an ok-ish email which does nothing? Your readers either don’t read it or does not take an action you wanted them to. How to fix this? By avoiding these 8 mistakes that we see in a lot of emails. They not only reduce engagement, but they can lead to the clicking of the unsubscribe button too fast! Lets begin with the 8 mistakes to avoid in email campaigns.
Must Read: Best Practices and Examples for Call to Action in Cold Emails
Using unclean data
If you are an active email marketer, this should not be a concern. However, if you have collected your data a while back (say, a few months to a year), you should never email that list without cleaning up the list. This is the biggest mistake to avoid in email campaigns. Why? Because it contains a lot of information that might have changed. For example, that email address is no longer in existence or that person you were targeting is no more an influencer in that company. Things change quickly today and you need to keep up with that. With GDPR around the corner, there could be no better time to clean your list than today.
Not segmenting the audience
Ways to Make Your Email Marketing Strategy Successful
The second mistake to avoid in email campaigns is to ignore the power of segmentation. Okay. If you are guilty of this, let me take a deep breath. Imagine yourself at the receiving end of the email. You are a small business owner and you subscribed to an amazing SaaS tool that helps you with payroll. But, all the emails that you receive deals with how their system works for MNCs and huge companies with thousands of employees. Can these emails ever convince you to know more about this tool? Perhaps, not. After all, it does not cater to your needs. Similarly, not all your audience is in the same boat. Understand their requirements and segment them properly before shooting an email. According to MailChimp’s latest data, segmented email marketing campaigns get 14.64% more email opens and 59.99% more clicks compared to non-segmented campaigns. Segmentation helps to stay relevant to your audience.
Must Read: The Do’s and Don’ts of Email Marketing
Forgetting to set the preview text
The third mistake to avoid in an email campaign is to ignore preview text. Before we begin, preview text is the tiny bit you can read by the side of your subject lines. It gives an idea regarding what your email is about.
Source: SendinBlue
You can set up a preview text that inspires your readers to click on it and read the email. No reader will want to click an email with some jumbled or random preview text which does not give them an idea of what they can expect from that email.
Sending too many email or too less
Both are dangerous! You do not want to overwhelm your readers with too many emails. Spamming your readers with too many emails is a surefire way of hurting your brand reputation and future chances of reaching out to them with your best offers, deals, and promotions. So, sending too many emails is a mistake you need to avoid in email campaigns. Respect your readers time and send only relevant emails. Always, almost always, send an email only if you have something relevant to share. But, do not send emails too rarely. Your aim should be to keep your brand relevant in the minds of the people! If you email that once in a while, they will forget about your business.
Must Read: The 6 Important Metrics To Measure Your Email Marketing Campaign
Sending from do not reply
At any cost, this is the biggest mistake to avoid in email campaigns. Personalization is no more an option. If you are not personalizing your emails, no one (literally, no one) will read it or visit your website. But, this applies to one more aspect of the email. Senders address. A lot of businesses send an email from donotreply@domain.com. According to us, this is similar to telling your readers to not approach you or engage with you. Instead of this, send an email from one of your real accounts. If you are a business or a blogger, there are certain people your readers know. While those people arent always the ones sending out an email, remember that email marketing campaigns should use a recognizable name and email. Also, if you are using a real account, you can encourage readers to hit reply and let you know what they feel or think.
Not having a link back to your website
The average number of links within an email marketing campaign is 23.3 links
Thats a lot of links! On the other hand, there is none or one link back to your website. The goal of an email is to get your readers to click on it. If you have no link, there is no action. But, even if you decide to link to your homepage, you are losing out. Readers will probably not scroll down to find your offer. Instead, have a dedicated landing page you want to send your readers to. Make it easy for readers to buy from you. KISSmetrics do a great job at linking to an email-focused landing page. The email includes one call-to-action, which sends me to this page:
Must Read: Email Marketing And Content Marketing – The Perfect Brew
Sending only promotional content
Oops! If you are sending overly promotional content, dont be surprised at dripping engagement rates. This is the mistake no 7 to avoid in email campaigns! Readers will assume that your emails must contain a promotional offer and those awesome content upgrades or products you created for them will go unnoticed. Are you ready to enhance your email marketing campaigns by avoiding these mistakes in email campaigns? If you avoid these 7 mistakes, you are bound to see an increase in engagement rates. Did you know that Litmus Email Analytics report Email Marketing in 2020 concludes that marketing emails will become increasingly smarter together with our inboxes becoming more organized and relevant. Return Path predicts that subscriber engagement will become more and more important for inbox placement as mailbox providers will develop personalized algorithms for deliverability. So lets make the most of email marketing campaigns in 2018
What are some mistakes to avoid in email campaigns? Have I missed something in the list? Please share in the comments below.
Must Read: How To Quickly Build Email Marketing Lists
Vikas Bhatt is the Co-Founder of ONLY B2B, a premium B2B lead generation company that specializes in helping businesses achieve their growth objectives through targeted marketing & sales campaigns. With 10+ years of experience in the industry, Vikas has a deep understanding of the challenges faced by businesses today and has developed a unique approach to lead generation that has helped clients across a range of industries around the globe. As a thought leader in the B2B marketing community, ONLY B2B specializes in demand generation, content syndication, database services and more.
