It’s easier than ever to send out polished marketing emails to thousands of recipients, lately your successful email campaigns are no more success. 

Just because you can set up an email campaign doesn’t mean you won’t make a mistake. There are a number of common pitfalls that every email marketer is bound to fall into at one point or another.

When email campaign executed properly, it can indeed be extremely productive as well as cost-effective. However, for successful email marketing campaigns to be successful they need to be well thought-out so that common mistakes that can destroy the effectiveness of the campaign are not made.

For Successful Email Campaigns Avoid These Mistakes

Mistake#1: Sending Image Only Based Emails

Many email clients automatically block images by default to protect users from spam and save their bandwidth. According to statistics, 43% of Gmail users always have images blocked. That is why you should think of not relying on images too much in your email marketing.

If there is no room for creating text-only email, than at least every image should be followed with description text so that the recipient could understand the content even with images blocked by email client software.

Mistake#2: Poor Subject Line

A poorly written subject line can kill any successful email campaigns. It’s like a prospective blind date showing up at your doorstep donning something questionable.

You probably think the entire night has been ruined and he or she hasn’t even said anything yet. This person might be just what you need, but you’ve already closed the door in their face. The same goes for an email and subject line. It must be attractive and provide value to the person receiving it, or they won’t even open it. In fact, it could irritate them enough to unsubscribe.

Mistake#3: Poor Content

You need to make sure that the marketing emails you send are relevant to the subscriber and deliver information that is valuable and of his interest. Emails that have very poor or even non-existent content and are just vehicles for advertising are not appreciated by receivers who will generally delete them immediately on receipt or apply filters that will send them to the trash bin automatically.

Mistake#4: Sending To Incorrect Segment 

Segmenting your audience for example by demographic trait is a great way to personalize your campaigns and improve your response rate. But it does mean you need to be extra careful when selecting the right list to send to!

After all, you wouldn’t want to send an email to childless singles congratulating them on the birth of their new baby.

Mistake#5: Sending From No-reply Address

Many brands use no-reply addresses when sending out a newsletter. It is a mistake. Users should have an opportunity to get in touch with a company, or they will feel that their opinion is not important.  A “no-reply” email address means “We want you to hear from us, but we don’t want to hear from you”. By all means, you should not limit their ability to communicate with you.

Nobody likes messages from robots or machines. People like to think there’s a real person at the other end of the Email. With a “no-reply” email address, the message feels cold and impersonal and it makes the recipient less likely to take action on it.

Mistake#6: Not Offering Value In Your Emails

People are constantly bombarded with emails, they’re likely doing anything they can to free up space in their inbox. To reduce email clutter, they’re going to resent any company that wastes their time and they’ll unsubscribe.

Ask yourself what your email subscribers are really looking for from your email list. Do they want discounts? Reminders of sales days? Expert information? Recommendations and referrals?

Go even further than this and ask what topics they really want to read about. For instance, if you’re a dentist, what do customers constantly ask about? Try to provide this type of value to them so subscribers don’t just ignore your emails.

Mistake#7: Not Checking The Links

When you send out a mass email, you’re probably not just writing to say “hello.” You’re likely hoping to trigger a response, such as buying tickets to your event.

Consequently, you will have spent ages honing the copy and getting the call to action just right. So just imagine that after all of that work, you discover that you’ve sent the email out with the wrong link. Now not only have you potentially lost sales, you may have frustrated your audience, too.

Mistake#8: Newsletter Not Mobile Optimized

If your emails are not optimized for mobile devices, it can cause serious harm to your campaigns as many users will instantly delete a message if they cannot view it properly.

Mistakes#9: Sending Emails at the Wrong Time

We don’t necessarily consider this a mistake, but over time it can become one. As you get your email marketing strategy off the ground, it’s important to track your email open rates. If no one is opening your emails, you’re wasting your time.

Start sending emails at a steady cadence, like the first Tuesday of every month at 9 a.m. After a few months of gathering data, switch it up one variable at a time. Try the first Thursday at 6 p.m. instead and see if you get different results.

Mistake#10: Sending Without Testing

Focus on how the message is displayed across the different email programs. For a more in-depth review of the message, you can use a service like Email Analysis. In terms of testing the results of a campaign, if you are becoming a pro you can use A/B testing to test variations of the same message on a small portion of the list.

Eventually, you’ll see what days and times yield the best results for your contact list. Anticipate that this may change over time, so the mistake to avoid making here is not paying attention to your email success rate statistics.

Wrapping Up

Mistakes do happen. But if you look into your mistakes and double check what you are sending you can actually enjoy the success of your email marketing campaigns.  In order to make an email marketing campaign successful you not just need to invest money, but also follow certain rules to increase conversion rates.

Learn what it takes to design and send emails, launching a successful email marketing campaign.

Contact SME Networks to start ramping up your email marketing efforts today!

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