Bertha's Blog: 5 Major Email Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

In the age of social media, is email still relevant in reaching out to your audience? The answer is yes. According to a recent report from Ascend2, 45% of marketers report that email marketing is their most effective tactic for lead generation, and 72% find that email marketing is easy to execute. But despite email’s popularity, however, many marketers aren’t spared from making mistakes in their email campaign.

According to Essayontime marketer Nina Lightfort, these mistakes include basic grammatical errors, misspellings, and other errors that could be fixed with basic proofreading. However, aside from these, some bigger mistakes that could turn off your audience from clicking that follow through link could involve the following email marketing mistakes:

1. Not using responsive design

Visuals factor in as much as content. That said, to convey how clear your content is to your audience, you will need to use responsive design in your emails. A simple yet clear layout that easily leads them to the call to action button is the first step in mapping it out.

But this doesn’t just mean envisioning that design on big screens like desktop or even laptops. According to Blue Hornet, 67.2% of consumers check their email using their smartphones. For email marketers, it’s essential to take into consideration how your designs will look once they’re compressed on a smaller screen.

2. Segmenting your lists incorrectly

People want to feel a sense of intimacy with the product or offering that you have. To do this, you’ll need to craft an email pitch that’s suited exactly for their needs. Identifying each target audience is essential in writing the best email.

However, this won’t work if you’re just sending the same email to everyone on your list. While you may not have the time to send out pitches to individuals one-by-one, you can keep track of specific groups you sent your email to by grouping target audiences into separate lists.

Check the buying trends, responses, and even profiles of your customers. Simple analytics may help you out on this. After doing so, group them into separate lists to help you better craft an email suited to each group’s profile. Not being able to group people in the correct segments, or even considering to group them at all, can lead to an ineffective pitch.

3. Overly self-promotional content

As mentioned earlier, your audience want to feel connected to your pitch. They will want to know how it will benefit them, rather than the other way around. While it’s not bad to promote your services and products, do so in a way that highlights its use to customers.

Overly self-promotional content that doesn’t define how your offerings will be of use to audiences will only turn them off. Tug at the right heartstrings by conveying an emotional pitch that triggers similar emotions in the audience.

4. Unclear subject lines

We live in quite a fast-paced world. When people open their emails, they might not bother to open it if they don’t see the relevance from the get-go. One way to encourage audiences to open that email is by using attractive subject lines.

A compelling subject line will create a sense of urgency in the reader to read on. It should already include the topic of what you’re going to talk about. Is it going to be a sale, a promotion, or something else?

Make sure to consider these the next time you write down your email for marketing. An attractive headline is the fastest way to an audience’s hearts.

5. Forget to track results of each campaign

Keeping track of the results is the best way to know how effective your campaign really was. There are certain software and plug-ins that can make this easier for marketers.

At the same time, don’t stop there. A potential customer might have gotten as far as subscribing to your services on a free trial basis. But if they don’t follow through to buy your service, it’s not exactly good news either. This may happen if you don’t set out a follow-up mechanism to attract people to actually avail themselves of your services.

Aside from your initial email, send follow-up emails to go out right after the trial period. This will remind subscribers who really liked your services to go on and purchase them as well.

The takeaway: you’ve got mail!

Email marketing is still a thriving industry, but marketers must learn how to use it properly in order to get the most out of it. Don’t let these common email marketing mistakes turn your audience away. Craft the perfect email pitch with a few effective countermeasures!

What other email marketing mistakes do marketers need to avoid? Share your thoughts in the comments.