The Common Mistakes Undermining Your Email Marketing Campaigns

One of the most effective tools in the outbound marketing arsenal is email marketing. The ability to directly read the inboxes of hundreds or thousands of people, and to directly measure and track the effectiveness of your campaign makes it a vital part of many a marketing campaign. However, if you’re filled with dread at the prospect, watching your bounce rates grow and grow, there’s a sign that you’re doing something wrong. Here, we’re going to look at what that might be.

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You’re Not Growing Your Mailing List

Entropy Is the great enemy in all email campaigns. Regardless of what you do, you are going to see people click fewer of your emails as time goes on, and people will unsubscribe. We will look at ways to reduce the rates of this happening in further tips, but an important way to battle this email entropy is to ensure that you’re bringing in new people, always building a robust email list. There are a host of ways to do this, such as using pop-up emails targeting cold, but promising leads, taking advantage of social media, landing pages, and referral programs to collect the emails of your most engaged audience members. If you’re not finding ways to build that mailing list, then you need to start right now.

Bad And Irrelevant Subject Lines

The first impression that you make with any marketing email is with your subject line. While some businesses will highlight the success of the clickbait line, promising detail with a click, the truth is that this success is often short-lived. You might attract some people who engage with the content inside, but those who do not are a lot more likely to unsubscribe or avoid clicking in the future. You need to make sure that your subject lines are to the point and immediately get down to what the value of the email really is to the audience. Avoid the caps, avoid the vague language, and avoid trying to make it seem like every email you send is life-changing.

Not Sending A Welcome Email

First impressions matter, and that goes beyond the subject line. You have to also think about when your subscribers first agree to get put on your mailing list. A welcome email is a highly effective way to ensure that they’re likely to continue to click on emails from you in the future (since they have very high opening and reading rates), but it’s your opportunity to demonstrate some of the value of your email campaign in the first place. You can explain who you are and what you will be sending them in the future. It’s a good tone-setter and ensures that your audience is primed for the kind of things you will be sending.

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Poor List Hygiene

You might dread the idea of your mailing list getting smaller over time. However, what is really worse is a mailing list with high bounce rates and, worse yet, high spam rates. Sometimes, it’s due to a loss of interest, the natural entropy of all email campaigns. Yet, it’s just as often due to people leaving accounts inactive, or making accounts that they don’t really use, and the like. Tools like email verification services allow you to better maintain the hygiene of your email list. You can make sure that you’re predominantly sending your emails to those who are more likely to open them in the first place and trim off any that are only there to drag your stats down, making it harder to see how effective your campaigns really are.

Forgetting Your Mobile Readers

You might spend a lot of your time behind a desk, crafting your emails, but that doesn’t mean that your readers are behind theirs, as well. More and more people check their email through their phones, tablets, and other mobile devices. You have to be certain that they’re able to get the same kind of value when opening your email as your desktop readers. Use email builders that offer responsive design, and make sure that you send a test copy to your own mobile device so you can confirm that the text, images, and other content of the email is all looking right.

Failing To Define And Segment Your Audience

When you’re sending an email, the way to best ensure that it is effective is to have a keen idea of who you’re sending to and what their specific wants, needs, and pain points are. The more generic and broad your email, the less likely it is to hit your readers where it matters. To that end, make sure that you have clearly defined your target audiences but, beyond that, take the time to segment your mailing list. You can segment them based on interest in different topics, demographics, and more, to make sure that you’re able to craft emails to better fit what they are more likely to click on. Otherwise, if your readers keep getting emails that feel irrelevant to their interests, they are more likely to click off.

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Not Defining Your Look

It might seem relatively low priority compared to some of the other points above but do not underestimate how important it is to have a high-quality and distinct aesthetic to your marketing emails. You want to make your emails visually fit in with the rest of your brand communication, but you should also adjust it to ensure it fits the medium of the digital screen and email inbox well. If you’re no graphic designer, then work with email-building tools that allow you to easily drag and drop the different visual elements that you want. Incorporate quality photography and imagery, as well, to help draw the eye to different subjects in the email.

The rejection rates on email marketing campaigns are typically pretty high. However, you should be seeing that trend move in your favor, over time, not away from it. Keep the tips above in mind and you might be filled with excitement when opening your email campaign analytics, rather than despair.