When you float emails to your potential customers, it is integral that your message should stand out from the hundreds of others that your reader will most definitely receive the same day. Sending a marketing email is not exactly an established branch science, but is also not far from a researched set of do’s and dont's.
Read on to find out 8 ways that will help you maintain the dignity of your email outbox.
1. Overhyped Subject Line
The most common mistake businesses make is the use of over the top subject lines. When a reader sees consistent & attractive headlines that lure them into emails with very little substance, they associate the sender with spam. It might encourage people to click your e-mail but if they are let down when they read your not so interesting content, then it is bound to make a long-term impact.
Rather sacrifice a click or two to maintain the integrity of your brand.
2. Circulating Mails from ‘noreply’
When you send an email from an address that begins with ‘noreply’ or from an ID that never gets checked, you’re actually saying that you do not wish to hear back from or talk to them. You lose out on an engagement opportunity on one of the most widespread direct marketing channels that exists. Make yourselves available to the users who have questions about you and about whatever that you are offering.
3. Too Many Call to Actions (CTAs)
We often try to stuff too much into a single email campaign. Wanting to achieve a lot in an email is asking the readers to do the work of deciphering whether your email is relevant or not. One call to action, linking it to one landing page that clarifies your offer makes it much easier to convert.
One of the biggest mistakes made in email marketing campaigns is the lack of a clear goal or call to action. Email marketing can be used to generate leads, engage customers, drive blog subscribers, or any number of other relevant goals. Some of the most successful email campaigns are simple, with single pieces of content and clear call to actions for downloads
4. Email is too long or misses a text link
People spend hours, even days, drafting long emails filled with many topics, ideas and news that need a minimum of 10 minutes of reading to get through. While they often look amazing, they just do not get the results an email marketer would want. These gigantic emails decrease the engagement, and worst of all they cut down on your time and energy.
Keep it short and simple! If you’ve got a lot to get off your chest, send short emails more often. People still read and like text links. Be sure to include one above the content and one below the content.
5. Email has only images or no images
Using all images as the entire email = worst idea ever. It’s typically not mobile optimized and all the content won’t appear if someone's image settings are off. Use at least one image inside of each email. All split tests done show that people are more likely to click on an image as compared to a text link.
The power of a plain text email should also not be ignored. Sometimes neatly designed emails for newsletters and product updates can shoot up conversion rates instantly.
6. Too many or too few emails are sent
Not being consistent enough should be refrained from immediately. The most frequent mistakes we see email marketers making is underestimating, or overestimating the number of times their subscribers wish to hear from them. This is backed up by the numbers of a 2015 survey which says that 53% of consumers reported getting way too any emails from retailers, while only 44% said they get a fair amount.
7. Mishandling Unsubscribe
Your customers should be able to unsubscribe with a maximum of 2 clicks, without having to receive a confirmation message or without having to enter the email address that they are unsubscribing or a password to log into an account. Making it difficult for recipients to unsubscribe can only have one effect: they will get irritated and mark your message as spam or even worse will blocking you as a sender. As multiple recipients take these actions, your sender reputation will begin to deteriorate and your deliverability will suffer. Your messages will automatically, start getting delivered directly to the spam folder, or not get delivered at all.
8. Not linking to your website
Your email need not have a plethora of links. On the other hand there are also marketing campaigns with zero links!
The purpose of the email is to get people to click through to your website, but if your link sends subscribers to your home page from where they scroll through your website to find the offer then you’re probably wasting your time and most definitely theirs.
Try including at least one link which sends the user to a dedicated landing page that continues the message within the email.
Almost all businesses adhere to email marketing. In fact billions of emails are sent everyday, which means each morning when you wake up and check your inbox you will most likely see a lot of unread emails and each morning when you wake up and schedule sending emails, a lot of them will end up unread or unattended.
Take note of the pointers above and avoid the latter sneaking into your daily schedule.
