We LOVE email marketing and think that all small business owners need effective email marketing campaigns and strategies. The keyword there being effective, if they aren’t effective then you won’t be able to reap the many benefits. Lots of people face these common email marketing challenges, giving into them without realizing and it’s damaging their businesses. Make sure you’re not one of them!
We’ll Be Discussing:
- Why it’s Important to Get Your Email Marketing Right
- Common Mistakes You Might Be Making
6 COMMON EMAIL MARKETING MISTAKES
YOU COULD BE MAKING
- Sending Emails From a ‘donotreply’ Address
- Sending Emails to Your Entire Database
- Using Boring Subject Lines
- Not Cleaning Up Your Subscribers List
- Buying Email Lists
- Not Being Optimized For Mobile Users
GETTING YOUR EMAIL MARKETING RIGHT
As discussed, it’s crucial to make sure that you’re doing your email marketing right so that you can bask in the eternal glory of having an amazing email marketing strategy! The thing about email marketing is that it’s a high-risk, high-reward type of scenario in the sense that it’s high-risk if you do it wrong and high-reward when you do it right. So it’s a no-brainer to check whether you make any of these common email mistakes we’ll be discussing now so that you can avoid them at all costs!
BENEFITS OF EMAIL MARKETING
The benefits are not only endless but they are extremely valuable! To name a few, you can:
Save Money
By setting up an email marketing strategy and then automating it as well, you can save lots of money in the long run as you won’t be needing to hire an extra pair of hands to get the work done. You and your trusty email marketing software have got the job down. We at CANDESCENT love to use ActiveCampaign for our email marketing and couldn’t recommend them enough! They’ve got a FREE TRIAL so that you can give them a go and see if it works for you.
Improve Productivity
Once your email marketing is automated you can focus on tasks that need your undivided attention. You can now spend more time on developing your products, therefore, increasing your productivity as the work being done is doubled but only half is done by you.
Improve Efficiency & Save Time
It’s clear that once you don’t need to work on something as much you’ll free up more time to do other things, whether that’s working on other parts of your creative business, or spending more time with your family. You can choose! But you’ll be able to increase your efficiency and save time by only working on the things you have to. The rest is done for you!
High-Quality Work
Since you have more time to focus elsewhere, that means that the projects you do focus on will be done so much better than if you had to share your time around. This ensures that your products will be the best that they can be as you have more time to develop them.
If you want to know some more benefits of automating your business as a whole then check out our article here. Also, check out our article about monetizing your email marketing.
EMAIL MARKETING STATISTICS
Can you believe that 72 % of people prefer to receive promotional content through email compared to 17% who prefer social media? This shows that having an effective email marketing strategy is the way forward when it comes to digital marketing and increasing your sales. We love social media too, but this shows that the money is in email marketing so it’s important to get it right!
58% of people check their email first thing in the morning. It’s important to be able to make the most of this statistic by handing your customers critical information about your products/ services straight to their inbox so that they can make a purchase while they have their breakfast in bed!
66% of consumers have purchased something directly from email marketing. I’m one of them… on multiple occasions. It really does work! Having a personal relationship with your subscribers allows them to feel more comfortable when receiving these deals, even to the point where they look forward to them!
4.3 billion people will have an email address by 2023. Again, make the most of this statistic so that in 2 years you can be visiting thousands of different inboxes with your subscribers waiting to read your emails.
Imagine the potential money there is to be made by doing email marketing effectively… Now picture it being sucked down the drain by a few silly marketing errors. Well, there is no need to worry, because once you’ve identified the problems then you can rectify them ASAP and all will be sorted!
EMAIL MARKETING MISTAKES YOU COULD BE MAKING
If you happen to do any of these then don’t worry! I know it sounds scary to think you’ve been falling into these email marketing pitfalls, but that’s what we’re here for, to help you fix them! So have a read to find out what to do instead in case you are making any of these mistakes.
SENDING EMAILS FROM A ‘DONOTREPLY’ ADDRESS
If a subscriber receives any email campaigns from a ‘donotreply@’ it can come across as quite unwelcoming. Since it clearly tells the subscribers not to reply it gives the impression that the email wasn’t sent from an actual person and instead from a robot or a machine. This hinders the development of your relationship with your subscribers and won’t let it grow to where it should be. You want to nurture your subscribers so that they feel as though they can contact you, ask you questions, get to know you and your brand. Having an email address that does the opposite of inviting subscribers to get in contact, is not the way to make them feel as though you’ll be there for any questions they may have.
SENDING EMAILS TO YOUR ENTIRE DATABASE
If you’re sending every email you curate to your whole database you’re not going to get far. Sending everyone updates about parts of your business they may not be interested in is just going to result in them unsubscribing. You have to be particular in the way you send out your emails. It’s simple and easy to split your subscribers up into different categories based on their interests and send automated emails accordingly. Say a customer had just bought a candle from you, there’s no point sending them an email promoting the same candle they just bought, that email is more suited to someone else. Instead, you may want to send them a promotion on some reed diffusers, something that they may also be interested in. Once you’ve got your subscriber categories set up, you’ll benefit from your email marketing so much more.
USING BORING SUBJECT LINES
Having boring email subject lines does more harm than you may think. This is the first thing that subscribers see when they get an email from you, if they’re boring they won’t bother reading them and may even end up deleting them completely. If you don’t catch their attention straight away then you’re risking all the effort you put into writing that email and the potential profit of them purchasing something. That’s why it’s key to have a punchy subject line to get your subs that much further down the line to spend their $. Lucky for you, we’ve got a very special Email Marketing Masterclass which includes 52 Subject Lines written and prepared, ready to enter your subscribers’ inboxes! Sign up to get first access to this amazing deal now.
NOT CLEANING UP YOUR SUBSCRIBERS LIST
This is something that you should do about twice a year, just to make sure that all the email addresses you have are not bouncing back. This could be because the addresses were typed in incorrectly and if so, this is easy to fix. It’s also good to figure out who is still engaging with your emails or not. It’s important to remove any addresses that are not engaging at all with your emails as it could get to the point where they may mark your emails as spam. You don’t want this as it does not just affect the emails to their address but the more spam reports you get then the fewer inboxes you’ll get into overall. You should clean your subscribers lists once you start to notice that your open and click-through rates start to decline. Before you go ahead and completely remove someone from your email list, you could try one last time by sending them a ‘re-engagement’ email and if they don’t respond to that then it’s a good idea to let them go before they banish you to the spam box. Once your email list is all clean and you’ve gotten rid of those who aren’t engaging anymore then your stats not only look better, but they’re also more accurate in determining what’s working or not based on what loyal subscribers are responding to!
BUYING EMAIL LISTS
Ultimately, just don’t do it. It may sound easy and inviting but it’s very harmful. Firstly, buying email lists violates the rules of consent under the GDPR. It’s illegal to send emails to people who haven’t explicitly ticked a box to receive your emails and you can be penalized by most email marketing platforms. They also just don’t allow people to send emails to bought email lists. It’s not a smart move as the people on the list don’t know you, so not only will you come across as annoying, but they may even send you to the spam box which, as discussed, will prevent other addresses from receiving your emails as well. All in all, it’s not a good idea, it doesn’t work out in your favour and ends up being a waste of money. If you desperately need help building your email list then check out our free guide instead where we give you a bunch of ideas to create a lead magnet that will grow your email list, organically and most importantly, legally.
NOT BEING OPTIMIZED FOR MOBILE USERS
Pretty much everyone has a smartphone now, and as one of the statistics above says that 58% of people check their email first thing in the morning, it’s most likely in bed and on their phones. This means that it’s so important that your emails are optimized for mobile phones. If your email comes through not looking organized, and isn’t cohesive with your branding, then people will see it as unprofessional and may end up unsubscribing right from receiving their very first welcome email.
So there you have it! The most common digital marketing mistakes that you could be making. Hopefully, you’re not, and if you are, don’t worry too much about it! It’s happened and it’s in the past, just work quickly to fix them so that you can focus on making the most out of your email marketing from here on out!
We really hope that you found this helpful in any way, and if there is anything you want to ask us please don’t hesitate at all to contact us here or across any of our social platforms. Also, check out our blog where we post articles all about content marketing for small businesses so make sure to check it out!
Image Credits: © Ekaterina Bolovtso / © Social Squares