In a time when marketers are so focused on influencers, social media and chatbots, old school email marketing still proves its worth in terms of efficiency and return of investment. But since there’s some strong competition out there, your email campaign has to be done right or you could risk losing your investment in something that wouldn’t bring you any returns.
So if you want to start on the right foot, you have to learn about the ten most common email marketing campaigns and how to avoid them:
Doing everything old school
Just because you’re using an old school marketing technique doesn’t mean you have to do it like it was decades ago. With email marketing, you can now utilize automated software that will help streamline your processes.
An email address checker, for instance, allows you to filter your email list and make sure that you only keep that will offer you real results.
Overselling yourself
Sure, you’re sending out emails that you hope would lead to sales. But you also need to understand that your emails could pave the way for an excellent relationship that will go beyond selling.
So instead of overselling yourself and risking being rejected by potential clients, why don’t you focus on offering value to them through your content?
If you’re in real estate, send out a weekly newsletter with tips that will help fist-time homebuyers get a good grip of buying a home while subtlety promoting your service.
Stuffing clients’ emails
You can’t get the attention of potential clients by stuffing their emails. In fact, it could have a different effect for you because you’re either getting blocked or redirected to spam.
According to research, 35% of marketers send only 3-5 emails per week to customers. This frequency is enough to keep customers interested but not bombard them with a lot of promotional content.
Not optimizing for mobile
35% of business professionals check their emails on a mobile device. So if you want to get noticed, you have to optimize your emails to be readable for mobile.
Send yourself a test copy to check across desktops, laptops and mobile phones so you can see if your font is big enough, if your images looks good and if your email is readable even on a small screen.
Remember that 3 out of 4 people will delete an email that’s not properly displayed on mobile within seconds.
Failing to follow through
You can’t just send one email and hope for the best. If you want to build a relationship with a lead, you have to follow through that initial email with something that’s in line with what you want to achieve out of this campaign.
Although you have to avoid over-sending messages, you also need to keep the interest by offering more valuable content for your clients.
Writing poor content
Consumers today only sift through their emails. That means that you only have a few seconds to capture their attention with the right words.
Good content is crucial to a successful email campaign so take the time to personalize emails as much as you can and offer content that will help these consumers and not just promote your products to them.
Creating generic subject lines
Your subject is that one line that could either get your email read or deleted within seconds. Consumers are very clever now. They won’t open subjects that talk about huge money or outrageous promises.
Instead, they are compelled to read those with subject lines that are short yet straight to the point, professional and not overly promotional, personalized and well written, and of course, those that offer value to them.
Wrong timing
Although you can send out emails any time, there are actually times within the day that’s optimal for sending out emails because that’s when more people are checking their emails, thus increasing your chances of getting noticed.
According to data from HubSpot, emails sent at 11 A.M. has the highest open rates, but you also need to determine the perfect time depending on what works best for your target audience.
Using the wrong graphics and images
Graphics and imagery are two of the things that you can add to make your emails more interesting and easier to process. But you also need to be careful when using photos, charts, infographics and even video in your content because too much can become overwhelming for clients to read.
Focus on your content and think about graphics and images as accents that would make your email look interesting without making it look cluttered.
Not creating a clear call to action
You’re not just sending emails to impress customers or let them know about your brand. Your email campaign should be able to entice them to take action, whether it’s subscribing to your service, buying your products or building a strong relationship with your business.
Your email should have a purpose and you need to know what exactly you would want a customer to do right after he reads your email. You can then guide him to that direction with a clear call to action.
But you also need to draw the line between convincing them to take action and overdoing it. You can’t ask someone to buy your product, share your post and subscribe to an email list all in a single email. You need to know your priorities so you can create a clear to action based on your goals.
The bottomline
If done right, an email campaign can really take your business to the next level. And the best part is, you don’t have to spend a lot of your marketing budget to get good returns from your campaign.
You just need to avoid these common mistakes and create your campaign around good research, smart planning, effective strategies, and of course, the right team to help you execute your vision the right way.
Only then can you get the most benefits from your email marketing campaign.
