72 percent of people say they would rather receive brand communication through email vs. through social channels. Since people are more open to your emails than other communication, you can’t waste your shot by sending bad emails.
Email marketing can be a complex beast and cause much confusion. If your company takes the time to learn how to use it, the return on investment will blow your mind. Continue reading this article to learn ten email marketing mistakes and how to remedy them.
Win with words – don’t send bad emails
Your inbox is likely busy with emails from colleagues and advertisers alike. If you don’t get value from being a subscriber to a list after a couple of times reading it, you’ll unsubscribe. Use these tips to make sure your emails are helpful and effective.
Before you get started with these tips, you should go through Email Validation to make sure all of the emails on your list are valid. People may have made a typo when entering their information and you don’t want to send emails to bouncing email addresses.
1. Confusing the reader out of the gate
Make sure you don’t get started on the wrong foot. Also, make sure you don’t waste an opportunity with the first email you send. When you send your first email, you are fresh in people’s mind. Since you are fresh in their minds, they are most likely to open the first email.
When you send your welcome email, you should welcome the reader, but you also need to do a couple of other things. Your first email should have a small blurb about who you are. Your first email should also tell the reader what they should expect from your emails.
When you let your new subscribers know more about you and what they should expect, they are more likely to open future emails. Readers that don’t think they are right for the list will unsubscribe and stop clogging up your CRM.
2. Failing to follow through
If you tell your readers what they should expect, you want to make sure that you follow through. If you aren’t following through on what you promised in your welcome email, you’ll have a higher percentage of people that unsubscribe.
If you aren’t able to deliver on everything that you promised when they started reading, be honest. You may decide you want to go in a different direction than what you had originally thought. Whatever the case, you should do your best to give the readers what they expect from your emails.
3. Not taking time to spruce up your email
When you send emails, you want to make sure they are professional. Depending on who your target market is, you may have more leeway than in some industries. Even if your readers aren’t going to be upset about grammar and small errors, you should still do your best to deliver a professional email. Your emails and other copy in your online marketing content say a lot about your company’s brand. If you want to make a good impression, you shouldn’t be careless with your email design or your copy.
4. Jabbering jargon
If your readers can’t understand what you’re saying, your unsubscribe rate is going to go through the roof. Know how much jargon your subscribers can handle and don’t go over it. The less confusing jargon you include in your emails, the better.
If you can simplify what you’re saying – simplify it.
5. Too many images
While mages are great in emails, you can’t depend on them to communicate. Your images should be the cherry on top of the ice cream Sunday.
Sometimes images won’t load in emails. You want your textual content to be able to stand on its own if necessary.
6. Waiting to be perfect to get started
It’s easy to get caught up in being perfect. You do want to be professional, but don’t let that stop you from getting started.
Think about getting better every time you send an email. You are never going to be perfect, so you need to get started and learn as you go.
7. Thinking it’s all about the numbers
You’ve likely heard stats about email marketing and are waiting for these magic numbers to happen. The truth is that you can make a good living off a small number of subscribers if you know how to provide value and market properly.
8. Designing only for desktop
Many of your readers use a mobile device. If you’re only designing for desktop, then your mobile readers won’t get the value you intend for them. Lack of mobile design is a rookie mistake you should avoid at all expense.
9. Failing to make it easy to subscribe
If your visitors want to stay connected with you, you need to make it easy for them. You should have plenty of options for people to get on your email list. You might use light boxes, pop-ups, inline forms, and content upgrades.
If you don’t make it easy for people to subscribe, there’s no doubt you’re missing out on subscribers. People aren’t going to work hard to get on an email list.
10. Let negative people form the email strategy
When you start sending emails, you may have some negative people on your list. If you get negative emails from a couple of people, it is easy to get offended. You may also get discouraged and think you need to change your strategy.
Remember why you chose this strategy and stick it out for a while to see how it goes. Don’t let haters determine how you’re going to run your business.
Continue your education
Online marketing is always changing, and it is important that you continue your education. Email marketing is a tried and true strategy for success online so don’t miss out on the benefits by using ineffective campaigns.
Grow your online empire
While it is important to learn how to stop writing bad emails, you also need to learn how to get more people on your list. One of the ways to get more subscribers on your list is through social media campaigns. Read our article on how to get more customers from Instagram today and keep growing your online empire.
