Common Mistakes Within Email Marketing

There are plenty of sources for good email marketing techniques and tips on the web, but not so many on the things to avoid in email marketing. There are crucial steps to follow when creating a successful email marketing campaign, but knowing what to avoid will get you faster positive results. There are some common mistakes that are obvious such as bad spelling or punctuation, and then there are certain not so clear ones such as not tailoring the message to your target audience or having a ‘no-reply’ email address.

The following are some prime examples of common mistakes within email marketing…

Testing Campaigns
Something as simple as testing a campaign before it gets sent out can be overlooked. It’s quick and simple to do, the campaign needs to be sent to multiple accounts on different servers such as Yahoo, Gmail and outlook. This way the performance of the campaign can be actively measured and changed if necessary. It’s also a brilliant way to be able to have a last chance look over, as there is nothing worse than sending content out and realising there’s a spelling mistake. Simple details such as grammar need to be checked, as well as making sure that links and images are working correctly.

Unsolicited Messages
No matter what, you should never send your email campaign to people who have not given permission for you to send them emails, not only is this practice illegal, it is also very ineffective. If you do go about doing this you should expect your brand to become weaker and less trustworthy, this will ultimately damage your relationship with your customers. Even if the customer pool is small, if they’ve signed up for emails you will get a much higher return on investment.
Not checking or acting on campaign reports
Every time you send an email campaign using email marketing software you will get back performance reports, if you don’t use these to your advantage then you’re missing out on some very important data that if used correctly can transform a bad campaign into a good one. Campaign reports also help you segment your audience so you can further tailor your messages for a number of different types of people.

Email Format
When it comes to creating and designing a template for an email marketing campaign, there are a few things that need to be followed. One aspect would include the length of the email as it can’t be too long, this is because viewers roughly spend 10 minutes max looking through their emails and won’t be interested in reading a long report about your company. Another point is the images, there can’t be too many of them. This is because if your email campaign is just a bucket load of images it will look like spam and the email may not be mobile optimized, this could be from the viewers having different settings on their phone. Also keeping the text plain and easy to read is more effective then over done writing, and it will look a lot neater. Lastly, making sure the formatting is correct is essential as everybody loves a personalized email, but if it is done wrong and comes up with something like ‘:NAME:’ it can put someone off.

Value To The Customer
Many companies send their customers a lot of emails but the customers find themselves no better off than before. When customers give you consent to send them emails, they are giving you a privilege that you should reward to strengthen your customer relations with your brand. Sometimes adding an incentive can enhance customer loyalty and create a sense of worth towards the company.

Keeping your email marketing program up-to-date and growing by testing it often will help your company recognize any faults sooner than later. Also, it’s important that people who are new to email marketing don’t go overboard on their first campaign, as they will just look like spam. Emails must be consistent but they should not be sent too much, just enough to get recognized.