Email marketing is a valuable tool to bring attention to your brand and make more sales. So you can’t waste this opportunity by taking it unseriously and making dumb mistakes.
We have collected some of the most typical mistakes that both beginner marketers and big companies make. Check your newsletters and see how you can improve them today.
Mistake #1: Using no email signature
If there are no contact details in your email, the reader is unlikely to look for them on your website. They won’t ask a question, report an issue, become a client.
Using an email signature generator helps do two essential things:
- provide contact information – additional email address, phone number, clickable website, social networks, etc. This way, you can even drive more traffic to your website/blog/shop;
- make emails more personal and create trust.
How to do it right
Find a free, user-friendly signature maker, create a personal email signature for yourself (and your colleagues), and make it appear at the end of every email you send.
Mistake #2: Writing misleading subject lines
Another common mistake is the inconsistency of the subject line with the email content. Everyone knows that the subject line affects the open rate. Indeed, a shocking headline will give an instant result in the statistics of openings, but if the subject line doesn’t match the content of the newsletter, the subscriber will be disappointed, their trust in the brand will be lost. This technique is perceived by the reader as manipulation, and no one likes to experience it on themselves. Therefore, in such cases, an increase in openings is often associated with an increase in spam complaints and unsubscriptions. Is this the goal you pursue?
How to do it right
Writing subject lines and headings is the real art. It is clear that subscribers need to be motivated to open emails. But if they are constantly disappointed with the content, there will be consequences in the long run. Therefore, it is better to lose a little in the opening statistics but write a truthful subject, rather than trick subscribers with content that is useless for them.
Extra tips:
- Consider who you are writing to (students, entrepreneurs, housewives, etc.) and choose the right tone;
- don’t deceive, but intrigue;
- stand out using personalization, questions, numbers;
- keep your subject line 50-60 characters for PC users and 30-40 characters for those who prefer mobile devices.
Mistake #3: Adding too many calls to action
Don’t add many different calls to action in one email: go to our blog, place an order, follow us on social media, write a review. By giving too many options to the recipient, you are risking to find yourself in a situation when they won’t take any action at all. Also, in this case, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of your email campaign, since you will have to analyze several metrics, the data for which can vary greatly.
How to do it right
Try to clearly convey to the recipient what you expect them to do, and make sure you provide all the information necessary for this. Ideally, you should include one call to action per email. As a result, your conversion rates will be higher.
Extra tips on how to write and design a call to action:
- describe the desired action with the verb – sign up, buy, download;
- concretize the offer – enroll in a course, download an eBook;
- make the link or button visible and contrasting. You can include a call to action in your email signature;
- add a time limit.
Mistake #4: Adding no value
Sometimes marketers send out irrelevant and useless newsletters to subscribers. They write about a company, product, or service without taking into account the interests of the recipient, trying to make a cold sale right away in each letter. But it doesn’t work anymore. Imagine that you subscribed to receive content from some brand, but instead of finding a perfect welcome email in your inbox, you see something like “Hello. Click here, do this and that. Pay now!” Chances are you’ll unsubscribe immediately or even report spam.
How to do it right
Educate your recipients. If you show them that your product or service can solve their problems, they’ll bring you their money without being pushed to do that.
Mistake #5: Thinking email design is not important
Sloppy letters are unpleasant to read. The poorly-designed email full of mistakes looks unprofessional and doesn’t create an image of a serious brand.
How to do it right
- Don’t forget to proofread and use services such as Grammarly or Hemingway Editor;
- avoid sending too much text without paragraphs;
- never go crazy with fonts and colors;
- don’t include low-quality images;
- if you don’t have any design skills, use the templates offered by most mailing services;
- learn from leading brands.
Mistake #6: Not proving an option to unsubscribe from mailings
The inability to unsubscribe is a sign of disrespect for the reader and a direct road to the “Spam” folder. Often, brands provide an unsubscribe link, but it is grayed out, hidden in the text, or it is inconvenient to unsubscribe. The reader gets angry and sends the email to spam.
How to do it right?
If you want to reduce the number of spam complaints, do this:
- place a link in the footer with clear text such as “unsubscribe,” “I don’t want to receive any more emails,” etc.;
- make the link visible;
- reduce unsubscribe steps.
Conclusion
You can’t avoid making mistakes. What is more important is to notice and correct them. Here is a checklist you can use to improve your mailings.
- The subject line describes the content of the email but isn’t too long;
- There are no typos and errors. You used typography (fonts, white space, color, hierarchy, etc.) The text is divided into paragraphs.
- There is an email signature with your contact data, call to action, etc.
- There is a link to unsubscribe from the mailing and it is noticeable;
- There is a clear call to action.
- Your email is relevant and provides value to the recipient.