10 Email Marketing Mistakes Every Brand Must Avoid
10 Email Marketing Mistakes Every Brand Must Avoid
Making mistakes is human nature, and for that reason, we often find errors when preparing an Email Marketing campaign. In emails, marketing errors cannot be corrected and when you send a campaign, there is no turning back. And a “Writer’s Fail” is not enough to mitigate the effect of a failed shipment.
Email Marketing
But in addition to the frustration that sending a campaign with errors or an incorrect message can generate, this type of oversight can significantly impact how your customers interact with your campaigns. Why?
- Because errors reduce the effectiveness of your emails, if you want to execute a comprehensive and successful strategy, that also generates engagement among your users and that, to a greater extent, contributes to the objectives of your company, you should avoid emails that do not work or are full of errors.
- Because mistakes have a negative impact on your clients’ confidence, deceptive campaigns, unintelligible personalization or broken emails are confusing and unclear. In the medium and long term, this can damage the trust of your subscribers.
- Because they can impact the delivery of your campaigns, many anti-spam filters do not let these errors pass and punish the sender who incurs them. Incorrect codes, typographical errors or broken images may cause you to end up in the spam folder.
From issues such as the inability to read it all because of the length of characters to emails with senders that we do not know or are wary of, etc. The errors of Email Marketing can go from the very extra features to the very content itself. And the most important thing is that they can affect any of the aspects that make up an email.
But, detecting your mistakes, learning from them and rectifying them to do better is wise although it is better still to know them beforehand so as not to commit them.
Therefore, we will show you the list of the ten most dreadful content attributes that damage your Email Marketing and that you should avoid at any cost.
What to avoid when sending emails?
1.- Emails that take too much time
The first problem with the user that receives an email is with time. The issue is critical since the right subject will depend on the extent to which the user is attracted or not by the message. This attraction will be the primary tool for the user to decide whether to open the email or not.
The subject of the email should not be too long; on the contrary, it should have a brief and well-thought message. The example of MarketingProfs is evident since numerous emails exceed the limit of words that may contain the subject, leading to it not being seen at all.
Among the errors of Email Marketing, this is usually one of the most common ones, since those who create the messages do not invest enough time to deal with these issues. But it is essential to know that the user sees the entire subject know first and foremost, what the message is about.
It is more or less an art to know how to condense the main idea of the email and what the topic consist of in a holder of 50 or 70 characters. Also, that idea must contain a call-to-action that allows the user to open the message. A challenge that those responsible for Email Marketing must solve.
2.- Not personalizing the content
One of the aspects that the user who receives the message values most is that the email is written for him. Companies have developed multiple ways to personalize emails :
- Inclusion of the name of the recipient of the message.
- Personalized content through searches on the website (usual in e-commerce).
- Personalized content through the content visited or uploaded in a social network (Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook use this resource).
eConsultancy reports that 74% of marketers claim targeted personalization boosts customer engagement.
To give you an example, reporting on one of the films that will premiere in the coming weeks, is the case of a message that is not sent by personalizing the content. Thus, the user will feel excluded because the content of the message has not been prepared in particular for him.
Non-personalized messages give the appearance of being generic. The generic words could be understood as those messages that are valid for all types of users, so they have nothing unusual for the user. They do not arouse interest.
3.- Spam
One of the most repeated errors in Email Marketing, and that generates the most problems for companies, is when their messages are classified as SPAM. The SPAM refers to those emails that the user does not find attractive, whose content is not suitable or that the user does not want to receive.
According to Spam Laws, spam makes up about 73% of the entire email population on earth.
Falling into the SPAM folder means that many users will not see the content of the message at any time. It is a strange occurrence that email readers may go to the SPAM folder, so you have to avoid making the mistakes that take your emails to that tray.
For this reason, it is essential that the company or user that sends your message reviews its content. Keeping in mind the principles that make a message classified as SPAM can be the solution. Making messages more attractive and better valued is the key.
4.- Emails that are not seen correctly
Another standard error when preparing an email is that the images or part of their content are not visible. The incorrect view of the email assumes that the message will not arrive as it should, losing its full potential.
The incorrect view of the email can be due to a number of reasons:
1. Images that are no longer on the original server.
2. Bad introduction of the email code.
3. Email not optimized to be seen from various devices such as mobile phones.
4. Elements that are not on the site that corresponds to them.
5. Links that do not lead anywhere.
Sending a message that can not be read correctly is an error of many companies that market by emails. The user especially penalizes the content he receives and can not enjoy it at all.
The email that can not be seen correctly is unpleasant to the eye. It is a type of message that the user usually discards immediately and that often leads the client to classify your account as SPAM or unsubscribe from the service.
5.- Lack of attractiveness
The sending of messages lacking any element that manages to catch the attention of the user results in the wrong delivery. The lack of appeal can be seen over text, lack of multimedia elements or elements that personalize the content.
Canva’s message is an example of an unattractive letter. The case is very shocking since Canva is a website dedicated to the development of images on the network. Even so, you need to avoid unattractive emails because then your email lacks any possible hook for the user to decide to read it thoroughly.
The excess of text at a time when users especially value the incursion of videos and images and the total lack of specially-created design elements makes for an unattractive email. This is just one more of the errors of Email Marketing that can end up undermining the image of the company.
6.- Shipment date
Choosing the right time to send the email is an art. If you send it beforehand, then the impact of the email is not as powerful as it could be and the user may even end up forgetting about the entire thing when the date eventually arrives.
The idea is to adapt to the calendar that customers have. If at a time you are looking for a type of topic, adapt to it and send messages related to that date. This resource is used by e-commerce who take advantage of Christmas, Black-Friday or Mother’s Day to launch their promotions.
7.- Load speed
Improper loading speed is a common error encountered in a variety of contemporary digital devices. When designing an email, the designer must take into account the weight of the elements that it incorporates. Thus, if the chosen images weigh too much, the content will not load quickly.
An email that does not load quickly loses the ability to reach the user. The patience of email readers is limited, so we must try to load the message in a short time. Reaching the user is the key to success.
Many companies make this crucial mistake, assuming that the user will have to wait a long time to know what is hidden in the bottom of the email. In these cases, if the client is not very interested in the content, he will decide to leave it and visit something else.
8.- Use of capital letters
Some companies choose to use capital letters to highlight their message. It is a well-used element if it is used with a limit, but not when it is abused.
Some companies send everything in capital letters. The ideal, in this case, is to highlight a word, or several, for that idea to arrive at a first impact. By sending the whole subject in capital letters, you lose all capacity for surprise.
What makes a message written entirely in capitals unique? Nothing. The capital letter is a resource that should be used in email issues as a substitute for bold. When it is not used like this, all its usefulness is diluted.
9.- Who is the sender?
Do you open the door of a stranger’s house? No. Well, the same thing happens with emails. To whom do the senders “Professional Treatment,” “The winning insurance” and “Bank branch” correspond with?
It is very unusual that the user who receives a message and does not know the sender may open it. Email Marketing is based on the confidence that the user gives to the sender of the message to open the email itself. If this trust does not exist, because it is impossible to know who sends the message, the content of the message will never come.
Ideally, in the case of companies, ensure the name of the company comes in the section of the sender. With individual users, the sender must be the name of the email user. If it can not be like that, always, it has to be a possible name to identify.
10.- Frequency of shipments
How often do you have to send an email? It’s a good question since it depends on many factors, such as the type of content and customer.
In the case of e-commerce, the frequency of sending messages is usually higher. As for study centers (academies or universities), they typically send more spaced mails over time.
Some theories say that the ideal is to send messages every 15 days or every month. The example of the TNT2016 conferences makes evident that there is no periodicity or planning in their shipments. That means some messages sent with a month of difference and others with just six days.
To avoid falling into this error, the ideal is to test the frequency with the users. Try to find the periodicity that best suits the needs of your customers and keep it in time.
Some Final Advice:
It can be pretty frustrating when it comes to sending correctly composed emails that deliver an impactful message. However, we are here to help. You can check out other articles on our website that give you a deeper understanding of what to do when sending emails for marketing purposes. You can:
- Learn how to avoid letting your email end up in spam.
- Learn why email reputation is essential.
- Determine the basics of email marketing and get started today.
Bio: Kristin Savage is interested in writing and planning to publish her own book in the nearest future. Also, she has been a reviewer at Pick Writers for a few years and is known for her thorough approach to accurately assess newcomer translation services. You can find her on Facebook
