Believe it or not, email marketing works, and the great thing about it is that it is relatively simple to do. You don’t need special skills to be able to put together an effective marketing plan that you can roll out to the people on your mailing list. With the introduction of email marketing tools, it has even become much easier and faster to get done.
As easy as this marketing ploy is, you can still see people making mistakes with it. In order for your email marketing strategies to work the way you want them to, you need to avoid these errors as best as you can. Here are some of the worst mistakes people make when they use this marketing tool:
Using over-the-top subject lines – when you write an email and you add a subject to it, you do so to inform the recipient of what is inside that email. Having a subject that entices people to click the message open, but does not deliver on what the subject makes them expect, will have adverse effects on your efforts. For starters, you will only let people down with what you are doing. You will also lose whatever trust there was in your brand simply because of a misleading and bloated subject line.
No option to unsubscribe from your mailing list – sure, you may have gained the emails of the people on your mailing list through an opt-in page on your site, which means you do have their permission to send them messages. This does not mean however that they are beholden to you and should receive emails from you all the time even when they are no longer interested. Giving people the option to opt out shows that you care about what they think, apart from the fact that it is actually mandated by law that you have a functioning unsubscribe link in all your marketing emails.
Sending out marketing blasts using a personal email address – this is a huge no-no, particularly if you want people to take your brand seriously. If you are a small business, it might be a good idea to open an email account with your company’s name on it or have one made specifically for your website. If you are a medium sized to a larger sized business, using emailing tools like Mail Chimp and Mad Mimi may be a good idea.
Emails are only sent out for the express purpose of selling – sure, marketing emails are made to do exactly that, but you do not have to be so obvious about it. Sending out emails announcing important stuff about your company that your subscribers might find interesting, sending out newsletters with helpful information that do not talk about selling, and even emails with friendly reminders, will come a long way in creating a lasting relationship with your target market.
You fill your email with an excessive number of CTAs – a call-to-action, or a CTA, should always be part of your marketing emails. This does not mean however that you should pepper your emails with a CTA every few sentences or paragraphs. One or two calls-to-action is all you need to entice a person to click through. If they are not interested in what you are saying, no amount of buttons, hyperlinks, or commands to click through for more information will ever get them to do so.
