Top Ten Mistakes of Email Marketing

February 11, 2010

Our last blog post featured the top five uses of email marketing; now you know what you should be using email marketing for, what mistakes should you avoid?

Email marketing takes time and practice to get right – don’t expect amazing results from day one. Like most marketing initiatives, the first few email campaigns you create will be a steep learning curve. So to give you a headstart, we’ve put together ten of the most common pitfalls:

1. You do not have a permission based mailing list

Before you start email marketing, you must have permission from everyone on your list. Permission means people have requested email marketing from you. Ensuring you only send to people who have asked for it gives you a higher quality campaign, better deliverability, better results (in terms of open and clicks) and less chance that you’ll get spam complaints. Yes, your email marketing list may be small to start off with, but if you create high quality emails, word will soon spread and your list will grow. Sending spam is unethical and is against the law. The anti-spam law is enforced by the Information Commissioner and breaches can lead to a fine of up to £5,000. The rules are in the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations, which have applied since December 2003.

2. Your content is poor

Always think about what your customers and prospects would find useful to read. Avoid words like ‘BUY NOW!’ and ‘OFFER ONLY AVAILABLE TODAY!”. In email, using all caps is the equivalent of screaming down the phone at the top of your lungs. It’s rude and people don’t like it. Some spam filters will also penalise you for using too many caps, bright red fonts and too many exclamation points.

The content should be fresh, unique and informative. If you don’t think your readers would be interested in it, don’t add it! Also remember to use the correct tone of voice. A surf shop would have a very different tone to a funeral parlour. ‘Yo yo, get down for some wicked cool funeral offers now’ doesn’t really portray the right image!

3. Your emails are full of errors

Remember to check your emails for spelling and grammar. Sounds simple, but if you’re in a hurry, it cna be vry eazy to make sillly spellnig mistcakes.

4. You make it difficult for people to register

You want people to register to receive your marketing email right? So don’t make them fill a ridiculously long form in. Think about the essential information you need – their email address. Anything more is a bonus. It’s fair enough to ask for their name and company, but don’t get bogged down in trying to get specific details from them. They just won’t bother.

5. Your subject lines are poorly worded

The subject line is the most important part of your email. This is what convinces people to open or delete. You need to make sure this is well thought out, with a headline that conveys a feeling of trust and entices them to open.

6. You do not test emails first

One of the main benefits of email marketing is that you can measure your results. So it makes sense to take an email that you’re about to send and test it before you send it to your whole list. Taking 5% of your list and send them the email with subject line A. Then take another 5% and send them the email with subject line B. The email that gets the most opens is the one you send to the remaining 90%. Subject lines are just one of the things you can test – content, messaging, layout, offers and graphics are all things that make a difference to the success rate of your email campaign, and can all be tested easily and quickly.

7. You do not have a strong call to action

Why are you sending your email? Is it to boost sales, generate online enquiries, gain referrals or boost your brand reputation? You need to understand why you are sending your email, then create a call to action that will help facilitate the desired results. If you want to make sales of a new product, make sure you have a call to action that says ‘click here to find out more’ or ‘click here to buy this new product’. You need to make the action clear and simple. Again, this call to action is something you can test.

8. You haven’t linked the email to any dedicated landing pages

Taking the above example, if you have a new product you want people to buy, doesn’t it make sense to take them to a dedicated landing page? If you can create a page that echoes the style, theme and message of the original email, it all helps to convey a feeling of trust and uniform to the message you are pushing. You can guide people through the sales funnel you know works best for your site – from email to landing page to sale.

9. You use too many graphics

Having too many graphics in your email is a very bad thing. Do not do it! Many email readers will automatically turn off graphics – so if the bulk of your content is made up of graphics, your readers will just see blank squares. Graphics also slow down the email downloads and can overshadow your message.

10. Ignoring your campaign reports

Using an email marketing tool means that you can measure the results of each campaign you send. You can use this data to look for trends and to make changes to your campaigns to see if you can improve the open rates, the click through rates and the conversions on site (such as making a purchase or enquiry). You’d be amazed at the difference you can make to the success of your campaigns by monitoring past results.

Can you think of any other mistakes? Let us know by leaving a note in the comments below!
If you’re having troubles getting the results you want from your email marketing campaigns, get in touch with us today. We’ve helped many companies get started with email marketing. Using our SMEketing Email Marketing Tool, organisations are now reaping the benefits of email marketing.

Filed under: Email Marketing