8 Common Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
Digital Marketing has become the preferred way of marketing as it is comparatively cheaper and more effective than traditional forms. One can even calculate the Return on Investment (RoI) for Digital Marketing more precisely. This makes Digital Marketing an indispensable part of the marketing plan of any profit-making organization. Digital Marketing comprises techniques like Search Engine Optimization(SEO), Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Email Marketing. In this blog, we will discuss email marketing in detail and how it can be leveraged to promote your organization. Also common mistakes you should avoid in email marketing
What is Email Marketing?
Email Marketing is a direct marketing channel that allows businesses to share information about new products, services, offers, and promotions. Modern email marketing has shifted from one-size-fits-all email messages focusing on consent, segmentation, and personalization. This is handled by automation tools, making it easier to cater to potential customers, drive sales, and build your Brand Value.
Types of Marketing emails
Promotional emails
Email marketing campaigns are used to promote new products, special offers, gated content like ebooks and webinars, and the company’s brand. A campaign comprises 3-10 emails sent over a period of several days.
Informational emails
This category of emails includes newsletters, which share information about new milestones reached, new product features, or valuable content like case studies. They are sent at regular intervals, like weekly or monthly.
Re-engagement emails
As the name suggests, these emails are sent to old customers or subscribers who have not been active lately. The purpose is to retarget them or convince them to repeat purchases.
Actually, you can also use an email finder extension to find your target’s email address effortlessly. If you don’t know how to use an email scraper, there are tutorials online.
Why is Email Marketing important?
Emails arrived in 1971, much earlier than social networking sites, but even today, they are used for Digital marketing much more than ever before. Email marketing campaigns can be customized much more than those on social media. This makes it a perfect tool for small businesses, as it gives them direct access to potential customers’ inboxes. Costs are also considerably lower compared to social media marketing, considering the reach and conversion rate associated with it.
Facts about Emails:
- In 2020, global email users stood at 4 billion
- 80% of Americans check email at least once a day, and 20% several times a day
- 62% of consumers consider email as the preferred communication channel with small businesses
- About 2.7 million emails are sent every second
- The chance of opening an email 24 hours after it is delivered goes down to 1%
Common Mistakes to Avoid in Email Marketing
Email marketing has a lot of benefits and can help you increase sales and traffic to your website, but make sure you do not make these common email marketing mistakes listed below
Mistake#1 Not Having a Clear Call to Action (CTA)
Whether it is a landing page, blog post, or email, you need to have a clear “Call to Action”; otherwise, you leave it to the audience to figure out what you want them to do. You cannot leave them confused or expect them to behave as you expect them to. So, before framing an email, be clear about your purpose.
You want to promote the content you have written, inform the reader about an event, or want to make a sale. Focus on your email’s design, images, and text, and make your call-to-action easy to find. Your call to action should be easy to find with large buttons, a big font, and attractive colours. You can repeat your CTA more than once, making it easy for the reader to visit your product or website.
Mistake#2 Not Sounding Professional
With millions of websites on the internet, many of them having malware, visitors are sceptical about providing information or clicking on buttons on suspicious websites that do not have a professional look.
In order to have a professional look, make sure your spelling and grammar are correct. It is better not to have images rather than images that the reader has seen in several places. There should be no attachments in your email other than PDFs to which the reader has subscribed earlier.
Mistake#3 Not Optimizing your Mobile Users
According to research, more than 70% of emails are read on a mobile device. It will be a big mistake if you don’t ensure that the emails you send are as easily read on mobile as on a desktop/laptop. The text and images should be clear, with content fitting into one column.
Before sending your emails, you should test them on mobile devices to ensure everything is perfect.
There are online tools that can help you to design and optimize emails for mobile devices. Data has revealed that if an email doesn’t display properly on a mobile device, three out of four people will delete it in seconds. This aspect can significantly impact your conversion rate and make or break your email marketing campaign.
Mistake#4 Sending emails at the Wrong Time
Data suggests that emails sent around 11.00 AM had the highest open rates. This does not necessarily mean that you should send your mailers at 11.00 AM, but you need to do some testing by sending emails at different times. This way, you can figure out the most appropriate time to engage the audience.
Another statistic reveals that Wednesdays and Fridays are the best days to send emails. However, it depends on whether you send a newsletter or a sales promotion. If your business does not send time-sensitive emails, it is best to find an ideal time for sending them. Do not send them at odd hours, as they will be lost in the inbox.
Mistake#5 Writing a Poor Subject Line
People who use the internet receive many emails daily, most of which are marketing or sales promotions. As a result, many emails are not opened or deleted after reading the subject line if the reader finds it useless. At the same time, writing spammy subject lines will not help. A good subject line does not trick people into opening the email but provides value. It is short, sounds professional, and avoids fluff and filler words.
Data reveals that 47% of email recipients opened the email based on the subject line alone. Ideally, it should be around 40 characters with seven words. Some businesses can use emojis, colourful language, or tone depending on their target audience. Try to be different to stand out from the crowd.
Mistake#6 Using too Many Images
Images can be used in an email to say more in less time, but using too many of them is a strict no-no. As they make the email heavier in terms of bytes, some users do not even allow images to open by changing their inbox settings. In that case, the recipient will have little to read and learn about you.
However, this does not mean that you do not use images at all, but you must be judicious about using them. If you write proper alt texts for images, the reader will still have a good idea about what the email is about, even if the images don’t load. You must ensure that the important message in the email is delivered through the text without much dependence on images.
Mistake#7 Focusing too Much on Sales
Whether you want to increase sales or website traffic, you want to establish a relationship with your customers. When you send emails to customers, you must be crystal clear about why you are mailing them. If you directly send mailers trying to sell your products, you will annoy them. You need to first earn their trust before you make sales pitches. Sharing tips or ideas engages your audience with valuable content. This will establish you as an industry expert and establish a rapport at the same time. More readers will open your emails, which will lead to higher conversions in the future.
Mistake#8 Not Personalizing Certain email Campaigns
Everyone likes personalized messages as compared to generic ones, and emails are no different. Once you have engaged your audience, you should send them customized emails with their names in the subject line or in the body. If you are a start-up with a small email list, you can go even a step further as compared to large businesses. As a typical person receives dozens of emails every day, sending something customized is bound to attract attention.
For large businesses, it may not be possible to send customized emails, but they can go for the segmentation of their target audience to deliver more relevant emails. For this, they can consult top advertising agencies who’d help you with the segmentation of the target audience. Segmentation based on purchase behaviour and preferences gives better results.
Wrapping Up…
We have seen what email marketing is all about and its advantages to businesses. In this digital era, it is possible to sell your products anywhere on the globe, and email is one of the tools to promote your product/service on the web. So, utilize this marketing tool to your advantage! If you do not make the common mistakes mentioned above, you can get a very high ROI from email marketing, which can catapult your business to new heights.
