Statistics says, about 205 billion email messages are sent per day. This clearly indicates that the world still believes in the magic of email marketing. This old school form of marketing has its own charm when it comes to cost-effectiveness and ROI. But, if not executed wisely, this marketing method can also get you blacklisted and can cost you click-throughs and email opens.
Here are 10 little and sometimes big mistakes every email marketer should stop making RIGHT NOW!
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Don’t underestimate the power of a subject line:
The golden rule to successful email marketing is a persuading yet simple subject line!
The key to a perfect subject line is – Keep it simple. Keep it real. Keep it informational. And to top all that, make it worth opening. If your subject line reads, “Monthly subscription from XXX”, there are higher chances of your email remaining unopened by the readers.
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Sending mails to people without their permission:
This is a big NO-NO! The last thing to be on an email marketer’s to-do list is mailing to people who have not given you permission. Many marketers end up taking a shortcut like buying a list from some source or harvest email Ids from the internet and shooting emails to them. This is against law and also ends up hurting the reputation of the firm. Before launching your next email campaign, make sure you do not fall victim to this common email marketing blunder.
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Sending Too Many Emails, Too Frequently
Someone wisely said, “Too much of anything is good for nothing”. And this applies to email marketing as well. Still, a majority of marketers believe in the concept, “Volume is the key”. A larger number of emails crashing into your subscriber’s inbox will only result in declining marginal ROI.
echoVME’s expert opinion: Stay in your customer’s mind and not always in their sight. Since the customer behavior of every business differs, identify the right frequency to shoot emails to your customers ensuring you don’t bombard their inbox.
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Timing is everything:
Timing is a very important aspect to be considered for tapping your potential customer. Your timing can make or break your email marketing efforts. Marketers these days tend to not consider timing as a critical factor and end up tampering the ROI. Timing should be considered when your audience is spread geographically. Also, in the case of special offers, the right time to send emails should be identified to make sure that the customers aren’t informed about it at the last minute.
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Email focuses on the Product and not the Customer:
Marketing is all about selling solutions to your customer’s problems and not selling your product. Your email is supposed to serve the customer and not the product. Most marketers practice cold sale with their email marketing techniques. Instead of cold selling, marketers should focus on adding value to the emails so that potential customers read them, share them and are excited to use more of the product.
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Email Contains Too Many or No Calls to Action (CTAs):
Another big blunder that email marketers are currently making is with regards to the Call to action.
The marketers sometimes try to accomplish too much in one campaign and end up confusing the subscriber by adding too many Call to actions.
While a few marketers add too many CTA’s, there are a few who miss out on adding any. This makes the email, a single piece of content that serves no objective.
Research says, one CTA linking to one landing page clarifies your offer and makes it easier to convert.
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Write emails and not letters:
In the internet era, where our attention spans are diminishing every passing minute, long emails are a big NO-NO! An average subscriber will not spend more than 2 minutes of his time to read his email. And not just that, these monster emails also reduce kill the engagement level of the user.
So Keep it Short. Keep it Simple. Keep it On Point.
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Emails with Too many or No images:
Emails with too many images are usually not optimized for mobiles. And such emails turn into a nightmare for the marketers when the links to the images break. Too many images, slow download, graphics that overshadow your message, and attachments will turn off readers.
echoVME’s Expert opinion:
Using all images as the entire email? NO.
Using at least one image in the mail? YES.
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Sending from donotreply@yourdomain.com:
Would you take an email received from noreply@xxx.com or donotreply@xxx.com seriously? Then how do you expect your subscribers to find such emails inviting and welcoming? The result of an email campaign from such addresses will only be the low Open rate.
Always send emails from addresses that let your customers reply back with queries if any and not to forget, always link your social media profiles leaving an array of options for your customers to reach you.
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Not optimizing your emails for mobile devices:
43% of users check emails on their smartphones regularly.
With the number of people reading emails on mobiles and tablets increasing manifolds, your emails NEED to look good on such devices. Moreover, about 64% of the decision makers read emails on their mobile phones.
If the email designs are too complicated to take any action from mobile gadgets, your customers are very likely to leave it unopened. So, it’s important to understand the power of the mobile readers and create a minimalistic design which is responsive & compatible with mobile devices.
As the saying goes, “intelligent people learn from their mistakes, while wise people learn from the mistakes of others”, we hope you take away some valuable information from this piece of writing and do not fall victim to any of these email marketing blunders.
Also Check Out : AWeber Review – Marketing Automation Using Email Marketing Tool
This article was contributed by Ruchika Jain –Social Media Advertising Specialist at echoVME.
