With the invention and growth of the internet and email marketing, a whole new medium has been opened up to individuals in the field of marketing. Unlike other marketing channels, email allows us the ability to reach thousands of individuals almost instantaneously and at little or no cost. And while it is easy to see the benefits this type of marketing can provide, learning the best way to go about sending out your emails isn’t always quite as simple. Here are 5 of the most common email marketing mistakes and how to fix them:
- Having no return address.
This is one of the most common mistakes when marketing by email and can also prove to be one of the most frustrating for your recipients. Often, the individuals you’ll be emailing will have never worked with you, and therefore will not have your contact information readily available. Rather than having noreply@ or bounce@ as the return email address, try to have a real, monitored return address that will make it easy and stress free for any potential clients to directly contact you. - Having a weak subject line.
You may think that the subject line is short, and therefore less important than the rest of your email. This is simply not true however, as the subject line is actually the second largest influencer on the open rate (after the sender). Think of the subject line as your only chance to make a first impression. As a general rule, try to make the subject line catchy, and when you send out email ask yourself, “Would I open this message?” - Sending image based emails.
Although common sense might tell you that an image based email may attract more attention, text-only emails actually have a 40 percent higher click through rate. There are multiple reasons that this may be, the first of which is that emails are often checked through smart phones and webmail, neither of which usually displays images as well as a desktop client. (Blackberries and Gmail are both notoriously bad at displaying images in email) If you do use images with a lot of text in them, be sure that you repeat everything in simple text, so that users that are unable or unwilling to see images don’t miss important content. - Not having a clear purpose.
Emails need to be clear in their intent, and that intent should usually occur near the top of your email, or somewhere where it is at least easy to identify without much work. Most individuals won’t take the time to search an entire email to find why it was sent. Have a direct offer, provide a coupon, or do something that makes the benefits of your email clear immediately. If you have more information, limit it to what is most important and most interesting to the reader. - Having no target.
Don’t just bombard every email with every offer. Instead create multiple lists for individuals with similar interests and send people only information they may be interested in. If you send someone something for which they have no concern, they may not bother to read your email next time.
While this list may not make you a master of email marketing immediately, you’ll find that almost all of the best email marketers are able to utilize these tips successfully and repeatedly each and every time they send an email.
