This is it, you’ve read tons of articles and case studies, you’ve seen examples and learned from the biggest influencers in the industry and even attended a few webinars on this. You’re now prepared to start a new email marketing campaign which will bring the results you’ve always wanted. Aaaand…it fails.
Believe it or not, no matter how much research you’re doing, sometimes, email marketing campaigns fail to impress and the results are far from what you were initially expecting. The recipients aren’t engaged and your emails are either left unopened or deleted as soon as they are received. What to do, what to do?
We know that you want your messages to reach as many people as possible and definitely avoid dealing with low open rates, so we’ve put together a short list with email marketing mistakes you should avoid at all costs. Or, well, stop doing them.
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Your subject line is overhyped
Dan Norris, the co-founder of WP Curve, says that writing headlines is a fine art. Yes, click bait headlines can bring an increased open rate, but you should consider the impact such titles can have on your brand. A lot of readers, who are already used with this style, might even consider them spammy and totally ignore such messages.
Imagine receiving an email from The New York Times, with a headline like “You’ll never guess what Donald Trump said about one of his biggest rivals!” Also, never, but never, use a headline that implies something that totally different from your email’s content! It affects the trust in your brand.
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You use a “noreply” address
We’ll try to keep this one as short as possible: People like to interact with people, not bots. Using such email address can only transmit a message like “Yeah, we don’t like you that much, but hey, here’s a promotional message, why don’t you check it out?”
We’re not saying to use an email like name.surname@company.com, but contact@company.com can be a great alternative. Also, encourage people to reply, if they need to know something! Redirect the messages to your support team, by the way!
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Your email doesn’t offer any value
Yes, we know, you want your subscribers to open your email, read them and eventually click on the links over there and buy something. This is the ideal scenario, but you see, in order to achieve this, don’t just throw a few lines and a link.
You need to offer something in that email, you need to add value to your message. Try to write an email so good that readers will even feel the need to share it with others, an email that makes them feel excited about what you’re trying to sell. Also, before sending them, ask yourself: Hm, would I buy this thing after reading the message?
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You buy email lists
Ah, come on! You’re still doing this? In 2016? Ask any experienced marketer and most of them will tell you that this is a bad idea. Your business can be affected, you can be blacklisted by your Internet provider, your email service provider will see you as a spammer and so will the ones you’re sending emails to.
Instead, focus on growing an email list organically. Besides avoiding all these risks, most of your subscribers will be targeted and the chances of registering an increased conversion rate will definitely be higher.
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Your email offers way too much information
Like mentioned above, it’s OK to create value with your emails, but make sure your readers are not overwhelmed when reading them. Don’t offer them way too many choices on a page, but rely on a limited number of offers.
Take Kickstarter’s example. The crowdsourcing platform has tons of new interesting projects every week, but those who receive the newsletter see just three of the best ones. An image for each of them, a title and that’s all. Keep your messages nice and simple and make sure your subscribers need just a few minutes to go through them.
And this is where our list comes to an end. Of course, we are aware of the fact that there are way more reasons why an email marketing campaign could go wrong, but we’ll talk about them in a future article. Until them, we’re looking forward to hearing from you guys. What are the biggest email marketing mistakes in your opinion? The comments section is waiting!
Sources:
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/why-email-marketing-fails/
http://www.quicksprout.com/2011/12/12/5-reasons-why-you-cant-make-your-email-marketing-work/
https://zapier.com/learn/ultimate-guide-to-email-marketing-apps/email-marketing-mistakes/