Whatever the business, whoever does the business, whoever designs the marketing strategy, having email marketing in the strategy is worth adding.
Email marketing can provide much higher engagement and transactional engagement than any other marketing medium.
On average, a person receives 121 emails per day, which means they receive more than they could read in a day.
It’s easy for a person to get overwhelmed with all those promotional, personal, and business emails in their inbox.
That’s where smart marketing needs to step in. If you are reading this blog, you may be a digital marketer (experienced or aspiring), then it’s worth discussing common mistakes made in email marketing strategy with you.
You may already be using email marketing in your promotion plan or planning to include it; this article will help you be aware of the common email marketing mistakes.
I’m sharing all the experience that I have with email marketing with you today. I’ve done email marketing to a few of my clients, myself, and the organizations I worked for. I’ve learned things with all this practical experience and started working on them, which eventually generated profits and customer retention (to my clients and me).
Without any further ado, let’s get into the 1st most common email marketing mistake.
Not Sending Welcome Email
You’ve gained a new email subscriber to your list. That’s awesome!
But have you sent them a welcome email?
If yes, that is too awesome. If not, it’s where your marketing strategy lacks. Let me explain in detail.
If a person is going through your site and finds an email signup form/popup (whatever you call), they may share their details, expecting more discounts or freebies or access (to something you offer). But when you fail to send them an email right after they sign up, it makes them feel awkward about your brand/business.
If you are sending the first mail after 3-4 days of signup, it’s not going to work, and eventually, it makes the user feel disappointed. And it prevents the person/user from entering the sales funnel. That eventually makes you lose.
Nobody likes to lose their subscribers. So never miss a welcome email that grabs your subscriber’s attention on the first go.
And apart from the above reason, there’s one more benefit of sending welcome emails. Do you know what it is?
Guess… Guess… Guess…
Didn’t catch my point? No worries. Let me clear it here in few lines.
Welcome emails have the highest opening and transactional rates when compared to other marketing activities. And it is a more than 190% click-through rate compared to any other emails that you send.
Well, that’s awesome!
It’s fantastic… and I don’t want you to miss out on the benefits of a welcome email. Try to get as much attention as you want from the welcome email; it’s like a first impression (it may be a newsletter, welcome message, promotional activities, coupons, discounts, and whatnot).
Sending Too Many Emails
Congrats! Now we’ve reached the second mistake, and obviously, we will not make this mistake again after realizing the mistake :).
Imagine… You are a normal person (like your subscribers), and now you are a subscriber to an example site’s newsletter.
You’ve signed up to get some value from them, right.
But what if that person/business sends you dozens of emails in a week? Will you open each email and read it? Or will you unsubscribe from the newsletter?
Most of the time, you unsubscribe (If I’m not wrong). Receiving too many messages/emails from the person/businesses is the number one reason for subscribing from the list.
See, the user needs to feel excited when they receive your mail, not annoyed. It’s simple and easy. Less is more.
Sending one email per week is considered the right frequency, but you can send 2-3 max per week if necessary (and keep the users in mind).
You may think, why would a user unsubscribe if they get emails from me only?
It’s not only you sending them emails, but there are also many businesses & people will exchange mails. Did you know that, on average, a person receives 121 emails per day?
At what number would it be for a week or a year? That reaches a five-digit number. Is it not a good sign, right?
They unsubscribe from the list with whom they receive more mails (until they aren’t necessary).
Now, you caught my point… Don’t send more emails to your subscribers. Always less is more. Send quality mails that add value to them.
Neglecting Call-to-Action
You’ve successfully gained subscribers through organic traffic, paid ads, and other marketing channels. That’s good.
You’ve started sending emails to them and seeing the open rates metrics. That’s too good.
You’ve sent mails without call-to-action to your subscribers. That’s not good (to you).
Sending emails without call-to-actions means your digital strategy is going nowhere. Each and everything we (digital marketers) do must have some or the other call-to-action that drives revenue or some conversions.
What are you expecting the user to do after reading your newsletter/email? We have to make them take action once they read the mail, which can be achieved by inscribing a call to action.
That may be buying your product, signing up for an event, downloading an ebook, or redirecting to your site (and there can be many depending upon the needs).
There are few other businesses and people who include several call-to-actions in one mail. That isn’t very pleasant.
Personally, I wouldn’t say I like it when a person includes more than two call-to-actions in their mails.
Because it makes the user get confused and make them think to go with which call-to-action, and due to the confusion, most of them don’t even pay attention to those golden points (call-to-action). That decreases your click-through rate. It’s not a good sign for your email marketing strategy.
Make sure you maintain a clear call-to-action in your emails. If you have more than two goals to achieve through the mail, send two different emails with different call-to-actions.
Note: Don’t forget the second mistake. While following your call-to-action, don’t spam your subscriber’s inbox with plenty of mail. Make it less and more quality one.
Never Forget the Mobile Users
Being a digital marketer, I spend most of my time with laptop and mobile.
Let’s discuss this with a narrative story (a small one). Please stick until my story get done :)…
On a fine sunny day, I’m chilling with my family. Suddenly, I got an email from one of the blog sites (where I subscribed to the newsletter), and I opened with curiosity by reading the subject line.
Then I got to see large text with many line spacing; 15 words covered almost my screen. What would be my opinion on this mail?
That was annoying and awkward at the same time. I exited from my mail app without even reading 10% of the mail text.
— Story Ends—
Now, let’s get into the context and explanation.
As you read my ugly story that I crafted, what are your thoughts on it? Comment at the end of this article.
Do you want your subscribers to quit reading your emails?
Every marketer or business owner doesn’t want that (even in dreams). Everybody wants a high bounce rate, open rate, click-through-links rate, and, lastly, ROI.
Now, I will stop cutting the bushes around.
Each mail you send should be mobile optimized because around 80% of your readers will use their mobiles to read mail.
Every mail you send should be visible; it may be images, text, headings, links, or buttons. Everything should look pleasant when viewed on mobiles. That should be your aim; haha, that I was too motivational.
Before you publish your email campaign, have a mobile test. Use some of your friends, family, or your email IDs and send a test mail. Check it yourself, whether everything is placed correctly, check background, images, heading, etc.
Most of the email providers offer an option to send a test mail; why not use them? Use it and improve your mobile formatting. If you find difficulty reading the mail on mobile, try to make a few tweaks in the editing and make it mobile-friendly.
With that point, we’ve finished (& realized) our fourth common mistake in email marketing to avoid.
Not building an Email List
There’s no fixed number when it comes to email lists. It’s not 50, 500, 5000, etc. There’s no specific number when it comes to the email list.
If you have only 50 subscribers, and you’ve stopped further gaining new ones. Sending mails to these 50 members every week won’t provide you the results or conversions that you desire.
You have to gain more subscribers in order to create high chances of conversions or sales. There’s no use if you have an excellent copy of mail with mobile optimized when you have fewer subscribers.
Start inserting the signup forms in your blogs and website to make the readers turn into subscribers. One can gain subscribers through paid advertising and other lead generation methods.
Don’t hide your signup form on your site. Create different types and trials and test until you find what works best for you.
You can use tools like Optinmonster or convertful to create lead forms/signup forms. Whatever tool you use, don’t skip this step. Start gaining new subscribers. I know it’s not an easy task, but it’s not impossible. It’s just hard, and we can go through hard with hard work mixed with smart work.
Incorporate a signup form just like I did below:
Verdict
Email marketing is a great medium to achieve customer retention and generate sales. But doing it in the right way is way more important. Minor mistakes cause more damage.
To make my readers realize these email marketing mistakes is my aim through this article. And what I have mentioned are just a few; there are many mistakes to discuss more. I’ll be updating with even more research work to justify my points.
Comment on any one mistake that every email marketer should know?
You’ve probably spent 10 minutes reading this blog (If I’m not wrong). Thanks for providing me those no. of mins from your valuable 24 hours.
Let’s catch up on my next article. Until then, do subscribe to my newsletter from here and receive weekly updates about Digital Marketing, Personal Finance, and Self Improvement tips.
