10 Email Marketing Campaign Mistakes - iContact

• Updated on: 2017-07-19
• Read original article here

Despite marketers’ focus on content and social media, email has proven to be an effective and powerful tool. In fact, email is one of the best ways to generate leads and keep in contact with current customers. Because of that, don’t expect to see email marketing campaigns vanish anytime soon.

Despite all of these years of practice, however, we still notice a lot of mistakes made when it comes to email marketing. While some mistakes are minor, such as typos, there are also the mistakes so bad that clearly the marketer is not familiar with email marketing at all; these 10 mistakes are good examples.

Don’t send emails to your subscribers just because. Despite what you may think, they don’t want to get bombarded by emails that contain useless information or are likely to end up in the junk folder. Take a step back and take a hard look at the number of emails you send. Only send emails that have relevance or solutions for your subscribers.

The subject line is the first impression you’re going to make with your subscribers. If the subject line doesn’t grab their attention or comes across as too spammy, you can be certain they’re not going to open up the email.

Remember, if your customer feels the email is just going to be a waste of their time and won’t provide them with any real value, he or she is going to delete it without hesitation.

Creating the perfect headline takes some hard work and experimentation, but if you need inspiration to get started, try out words like “Upgrade,” “Just,” “Content,” “Go,” and “Wonderful,” that encourage higher click-through rates.

Your subscribers are probably receiving hundreds of emails each day. They simply don’t have the time to open and read each and every one. While a tempting subject line may entice them to open the email, if the content is too wordy, they may simply move on. And that means they miss out on the message you are sending them.

Keep your emails concise by getting directly to the point. You could go a step further and make sure it’s easy for your subscribers to scan by including bold fonts and bullet points to highlight the main points of your message.

How do you expect to grow your list if you aren’t taking advantage of the prime real estate on your website, blog or social channels? They should all contain a sign-up form for your email list.

If you want to “bait” visitors into signing up for your email newsletter, you can try:

Make sure that your bait is relevant to your business. If you offer something irrelevant, you run the risk of obtaining new subscribers who will quickly lose interest in your emails and will become disengaged.

Have you gotten a really juicy email that made you want to purchase a product or service, only to find out there wasn’t a link at the end of the email? Even though the copy was excellent, that company just missed out on a sale. And if you didn’t receive that link, you can bet that no other subscriber did as well.

No matter how great the actual email or marketing campaign is, it’s vital that your emails are actionable. For example, include a call to action or button at the end of every message, like “if you’d like to read more, click here for our latest blog post” or “get in touch for your free quote today by calling 1-800-555-5555!” so the subscriber knows what they should do next.

Remember, communicating your message is the whole point of your email marketing campaign. If the actual message is too difficult to read, do you expect the subscriber to keep reading the email?

When constructing your message, make sure you use a large enough font — 14px is a good baseline font size to worth with; headlines or text that are more important can be a bit larger. Limit the number of colors you use and include some contrast that keeps the text easily legible (black lettering against a gray background isn’t easy on the eyes).

“Your ‘From’ address is your business card; it identifies and establishes who you are as a sender,”writes Brendan Matthews, iContact’s Manager of Deliverability. He suggests you use a “From” address that will point to a domain you own and control. That gives the vibe that you’re a legit business with an actual person behind the screen.

Always keep in mind that people want to interact with people, not a generic mailbox.

It’s not uncommon for brands to create multiple versions of an email. For example, a sports apparel company would create two emails during a sports championship series. Let’s say it was during the 2015 World Series between the Royals and Mets. One version would celebrate a Mets victory, with the other celebrating a Royals win. So imagine how embarrassing it would have been if that company sent out the Mets version.

That said, everyone occasionally sends out an “Oops” email. There are ways to recover from it gracefully. Check out this blog post for some ideas. Sometimes, a mistake can even have some unexpected dividends, as one iContact customer recently discovered.

Segmenting your email subscribers is a necessity in today’s competitive marketing arena. Segmentation allows you to send more personalized and highly targeted emails to different segments of your audience — and those are the kinds of emails that will be most successful.

For example, you could send subscribers in the colder regions of the U.S., particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, a discount on winter gear like jackets or gloves if you were a clothing manufacturer. However, if that message was sent to subscribers in warmer regions, like Florida or Texas, it would be confusing and wouldn’t provide them with any value.

Ultimately, email marketing is all about serving the customer and not just pushing your products or services. Again, your customers want something that is going to make their lives just a bit easier.

Let’s say you’re a subscription service. Instead of sending just another bland email about the benefits of a monthly plan to a wavering subscriber, you could send a friendly reminder by email that the 30-day free trial is almost up and then offer several options, or better yet, a discount or coupon, to demonstrate that you are willing to work hard to keep their business.

If you want to get the most out of your email marketing, make sure you:

What are the most common mistakes you’ve noticed email marketers make?