10 Mistakes You Should Avoid While Doing Email Marketing
Surely by now you are already convinced of the advantages of email marketing. You may even have launched several emailing campaigns, but the results have not been what you expected. It is true that email marketing is a very effective technique, but to obtain benefits it must be applied well and avoid the mistakes that will lead to failure.
Before continuing, and in case anyone is still somewhat confused, I am going to remind you what email marketing is. Email marketing is a communication technique that uses email to increase sales, maintain regular contact with potential or current customers and improve their loyalty. Email marketing uses email as a communication channel to send commercial (or non-commercial) information massively to the target audience, using tools such as Mailchimp or Doppler. Email marketing campaigns have excellent results in terms of increased traffic, positive response from potential and actual customers, and most importantly, the number of conversions. But, of course, it’s not just about sending emails, there’s a lot of work behind it.
If you want to take advantage of the benefits of this technique, I recommend that you continue reading. In this post I write about 10 mistakes that, if you avoid them, I’m sure will substantially improve your emailing campaigns. So if you are convinced that the time has come to increase the sales of your business thanks to email marketing, these are the 10 mistakes that you should avoid when sending an email:
1. Not having a strategy
High! If you have already started sending emails and you do not have a strategy, you are making a serious mistake. Haven’t you ever been told that you can’t start the house on the roof? Well, in email marketing the same thing happens. The first thing to do beforehand is to plan a strategy that is integrated into the overall Digital Marketing strategy. When making this strategy you must be clear about who you are addressing and what your objectives are. Once your target has been delimited and a clear objective has been defined, which can be anything from increasing traffic to your website, selling a service or increasing your leads, it is time to plan the rest of the strategy. This is the only path that leads to success if you are going to do emailing. The organization is another of the keys when you do email marketing and for this reason I recommend you have an annual calendar in which you program the shipments that you are going to make and so you can take into account details such as the time of year (it should not be the same emailing sent in summer than one at Christmas).
2. Send the email to anyone
And with any, I mean a contact that is not a valuable lead or corresponds to your target. This may happen to you if you buy a database, an illegal practice and also very ineffective. Think that it is better that you write to 100 people that you know are potential clients than to 1000 strangers. Also, you should not forget that you cannot send business emails to anyone who has not given you their explicit permission. Not only is it illegal, but it will only land you in the spam box and scare away customers. The reality is that you must earn each contact and although it is hard work, it has a great reward, since each new subscriber has a real chance of becoming a customer. To attract quality leads, you can implement various actions such as offering exclusive content, a webinar, giving away an ebook or whitepaper, etc.
3. Not segmenting the database before doing the emailing.
Once you have managed to create your own database, it is time to segment. Do not forget that your subscribers do not have the same interests and therefore you should not treat them all the same. If you don’t do a good segmentation, your mailings will reach the wrong people, you will waste time and resources and you will get a bad reputation that will negatively influence your brand image. This is why segmentation is one of the keys to the success of an emailing campaign. Imagine that you have a clothing store and you are going to send an email announcing that women’s clothing is 50% off during that week. The most effective thing will be to segment your database to target, in this case, women between 15 and 50 years of age. If this same email reaches, for example, a 23-year-old man, he will most likely ignore it or even mark it as spam. This is just an example, but surely you already understand better the importance of segmentation
4. Not putting a good topic.
Most experts agree that when it comes to emailing, the subject matter is even more important than the email itself. It is the first thing that is seen and most decide whether or not to open the email based on what the subject conveys to them. For this reason it is important to work on it conscientiously. The subject line must reflect the main benefit that the recipients of the email will obtain and it must also arouse enough curiosity for them to want to open the email. It is advisable to use direct, attractive and creative phrases. Nobody said this was easy!
5. Not coddling subscribers.
What do I mean by this? At first it’s easy to think of subscribers as numbers and not as people, but this is a mistake that you can easily avoid. Always keep in mind that one of those subscribers, whether you have hundreds or thousands of them, could be you and treat them as you would like to be treated. This mentality is the one that I apply in real life, I always try to treat people the way I would like them to treat me and although it sounds cliché, the truth is that it works. Do not forget to maintain frequent communication with them, but also do not overwhelm them with too many emails. If your subscribers spend too long without hearing from you, they will forget about your existence and by the time you write to them again, others will have been found to meet their needs. The ideal is an email a week or every 15 days. And what should you put in these emailings? You will find the answer in the following point.
6. Write only to send promotional content.
Don’t spam your contacts. It should be a digital marketing mantra. You are convinced that your product or service is the best and it is logical that you want to share your promotions with all your potential clients, but first you must earn their trust. Your shipments cannot all be promotional, as this will only drive customers away. Yes, email marketing is a powerful sales tool, but only if you use it correctly. When implementing email marketing actions, it is vital to be very clear that it is necessary to give before receiving and, for this reason, I recommend that most of your mailings (close to 80%) are not commercial, but rather add value. for the potential client. There are many things you can offer them: discounts, gifts, courses, an ebook, valuable content… In this way you will gain credibility and when you send a commercial email your potential customers will be much more receptive.
7. Putting too many CTAs that lead to different sites.
A Call to Action or CTA (also called a call to action) is a button or link located on our website or landing page that seeks to attract the attention of potential customers and provoke an immediate reaction, usually aimed at converting them into customers. finals. A CTA must be interesting enough to persuade the consumer to carry out the action we are looking for (fill out a form, click, get in touch…). It is an indispensable part of emailing. To begin with, you must be clear about the objective of your Call to action. If you put several Call To Actions that lead to different landing pages, the message will be distorted and you will only confuse the customer. The Call to Action will be the tool that helps you get the user’s attention to achieve the ultimate goal of emailing.
8. Do not personalize emails.
People like to feel special. When you send an email, this is how you should make each subscriber feel and you will only achieve it through personalization. If you have a good database, you will have information such as the name of the recipient. Take advantage of this to address the person directly by name, thus creating a more human and close relationship. Also, don’t forget to use a close tone while still being correct using, for example, the “tú” instead of used. In this way, the person who receives the email will feel more valued and will be more predisposed to read your email and pay attention to the message you want to convey in the emailing.
9. Design complex emailings.
The design of your emailings should be simple. Forget designing cluttered emails with too many images, different fonts, and lots of colors. In the case of emailings, the rule that less is more is fulfilled. The images deserve a separate mention, as they bring other problems with them. The mail managers that filter the emails will send your emailing directly to spam if it contains too many images. In addition, this type of email takes up more space, which again will mean that your email does not reach its recipient. As for the texts, I recommend that they be short, with paragraphs of 3 or 4 lines and very direct. Thus, you will attract and maintain the reader’s attention and your message will get through to him.
10. Write in a way that will lead to spam.
Did you know that spam filters are especially sensitive to certain words? If you use terms like: discount, savings, sex, offer, etc. your emails will be more likely to fall into spam. You should also avoid abusing exclamation marks and capital letters. This point is very important because it would be a shame if you created a good email and it got lost along the way and never reached its recipient.
