Five Email Marketing Mistakes You Should Avoid at all Costs December 5, 2018PINK NotesOff

With more than 3.8 billion email accounts and 294 billion emails sent every single day, it is clear that email marketing is one of the best ways to gain customers and reach your audience. While it is important for a business to create a newsletter and send it out to customers, if you want to have success over the long term, you need a solid email marketing strategy. However, for you to come up with a good strategy, there are some specific mistakes you should refrain from committing. Here are the five email marketing mistakes you should avoid at all costs.

Failing to Build Your Database
The first step towards establishing an effective email marketing strategy is building a database. This means having a basic list to start with that you can later grow. The easiest way to build your email list is to start with your existing email contacts. You can do this by importing contacts from your LinkedIn account or creating an email newsletter signup on your website. Just ensure that you start with recipients that you are familiar with and that you send them emails that are easy to share.

However, building a database goes far beyond just collecting email addresses and blasting messages. You also have to make sure that your messages are as personalized and laser targeted as possible if you want to get the best results. While making sure that you insert your users’ names in the message and subject line is important, personalization goes way deeper than that.

If you want to get the best results from your list, you have to understand how to segment it correctly. You can’t approach buying customers the same way you would contact users who subscribed after downloading a free manual, for instance. Buying customers, for example, might be more open to direct selling. They have already established a trusting relationship with you and are more open to your products, provided they were satisfied in the first place.

When it comes to nonpaying clients, you should be focusing on providing genuine information first. You want to build a solid and genuine relationship with them and establish yourself as a real resource. You should spend a lot more time sending purely informational messages or directing your clients towards free resources for the first few messages. While there isn’t one set number, as a rule of thumb, if more than 10% of your emails are purely promotional in nature, you’re probably selling too much. Try to focus more on giving than selling; the more trust you establish, the more support you will get when you do decide to sell something.

Inauthentic Subject Lines
Did you know that nearly 50 percent of people say that the subject line is what determines whether they will open an email or not? Despite being a subtle aspect of your email campaign, the subject line is what grabs the attention of your email readers. Although your subject line should be aimed towards grabbing your reader’s attention, it should neither be over-dramatic or boring. You should find the perfect balance between the two and constantly try new things to see what works best.

Sending Unprofessional-Looking Emails
When you create a newsletter, you have to keep in mind that you are competing with very big brands. Therefore, in order to stand out from the competition, ensure that all emails you send are well written and look professional. This means creating emails that are visually appealing and look like they are coming from a real person. Check out online resources such as SendinBlue to help you create an effective newsletter. When you are able to come up with professional looking emails, people will be eager to read and subscribe.

Sending Emails Without Testing
While most people won’t mind if you misspell a word or forget to add a space between two words in day to day emails, flawless emails are essential if you want to succeed with email marketing. This is why you need to test each one of your newsletter emails internally before you start sending them out. Apart from helping you avoid making these simple mistakes, testing also provides you with an opportunity to make some minor improvements to your email.

Ignoring Your Message Statistics
One of the major mistakes that most marketers make is failing to review message statistics. Monitoring message statistics helps you to discover the best time and frequency to send out emails and anticipate potential issues. Statistics such as the email Open Rate, Click Through Rate, and delivery rate help you to understand the quality and effectiveness of your email strategy. By reviewing your message statistics, you will be able to learn from them and adjust your email marketing strategy.

Incorporating email marketing into your marketing strategy can take your sales revenues to a whole new level. By avoiding these five mistakes, business owners will be able to come up with solid email marketing strategies that will help them convert more and maintain their existing customers.

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