When using email marketing, it’s solely your responsibility to make sure that your subscribers don’t bear the same brunt by finding your emails (for lack of a better term) annoying.
Email marketing is all about blowing all the right trumpets for your brand, with the eventual goal of reaping sales. But, if your subscribers find your emails irritating, then you are doing it all wrong. Not following the best practices can land you in trouble. And in the worst-case, subscribers can spam report your emails.
Hence, it’s always good to have a reality check done. So, scroll down as we present you some of the major email do’s and don’ts and what impact they make on your email marketing campaign.
Using RE: in subject lines
Well, here comes the elephant in the room. The thing is, subject lines and CTAs are the two most prominent elements in email marketing. They are the first two things that a recipient sees after getting an email. So, if everything goes wrong with either or both of them, it will make the biggest dent.
And, having RE: or FW: in your emails is the ultimate eyesore for the recipient and nightmare for the marketer. They can be so infuriating that someone might just report such emails as spam, jeopardizing your entire campaign.
See this email. You must never resort to such gimmicks to get email opens. Even if you get a higher open rate, people will eventually be disappointed with the email and might avoid opening the future emails.
Not only this is the evident lack of attention to the email campaigns, but such emails also carry a low sense of credibility. This would ruin the brand image in the long run.
With so many emails being sent in a day on an average, making your emails stand out is a crucial challenge, and having ‘RE’ or ‘FWD’ is the perfect example of email marketing gone wrong. So, pay attention to what is in your subject line real estate.
Misleading your subscribers is the last thing you want to do.
Take a look at this report by Litmus and Fluent.
Going overboard with email frequency
Excess of everything is bad. It’s true for your emails as well, no matter how good they are. As per a report from Adobe, 45 percent of respondents hate when the brands send too many emails.
The frequency of shooting mails in industry and target group-specific. That being said a recent Sleeknote report suggested that sending one email per month would fetch you the open rate at 28 percent. Moreover, if you drop emails 2–4 times per month, your campaign will register the second-highest open rate at 21 percent.”
Suppose you are having a hard time chalking out a clear timeline for your email marketing campaign. In that case, you can always count on services such as Salesforce experts or Mailchimp email experts. This will not only help with your timing, but it can also elevate your entire email campaign’s appeal.
Irrespective of your email frequency, make sure that each email has a well-defined purpose. The goal is to make your subscribers feel valuable, not just a content dumping pit.
To figure out what works best, studying your competitors’ email frequency is indispensable. Along with that, you need to have a better understanding of your target audience and their expectations.
Their feedback is the most valuable resource to decide what would work best for you. The power to choose is highly desirable and giving that to your subscribers would not only benefit your email marketing campaign but your business as well.
The below example is what I am talking about. See, I understand that you would never want to let go of those hard-earned leads as a business owner, but here’s the right way to communicate. This emailer from Return Path gives the recipients the power to decide when and how many emails to receive.
This sort of strategy creates a pull factor for your content because a user has chosen to receive something as per their will and convenience; they will probably be waiting for your email next time.
‘Lead-nurturing process’
‘Lead-nurturing’ is like the process of confessing your feelings to your crush and then persisting until they say a yes. But do you keep nagging them every now and then until they nod? No, right?
You give them space to think, analyze, and then make a decision. You need to do the same with your business. If a stakeholder has asked some time before closing in the deal then you should not go bonkers until they send a yes or either block you. Do not shoot reminder emails every now and then. Sounding too desperate would narrow your chances despite having the right offering. You need to maintain a distance but not long enough for them to sway away.
Sending deals after they have expired
Sending expired deals might put an expiry date to your relationship with the subscriber. Not only will it hit the customer interest and sentiment around your brand, but it will also portray the carelessness that occurred when compiling the deals with the mails.
Make sure you cross-check everything. Right from the coupon codes, validity dates, links, and even the content related to the deal. Copying the rules from the previous deal might sound ‘efficient and time-saving’ but it might end up hurting your brand image if they are outdated. Along with that, keep a check on the campaign deadline as well, or else despite offering the fresh deals, they might expire by the time your emails reach the recipients.
Content’s timely relevance is not just limited to the deals you offer. The news and other updates featured in your email marketing campaigns should also be relevant and well-timed. Sending evergreen content with a longer shelf-life is a better option than sending obsolete and stale content to your subscribers.
Getting the names’ spellings wrong
Gifting your loved one something on their birthday and getting their name’s spelling wrong is the worst thing that could have happened. Trust me nothing blows an email marketing campaign with a misspelled name does.
It might not be your fault altogether. A subscriber might have made a simple typo when they were signing up for your emails. The same report from Adobe also revealed that 17 percent of respondents said they’re likely to end the relationship with a brand if they misspell their name in an email. And it’s bad because that’s something which could have been avoided.
It’s crucial to fix these seemingly small anomalies for a pleasant subscriber experience, and one way to do so is by adopting a two-step opt-in process.
You can send your subscribers a follow-up email to cross-check their desire to subscribe to your emails. This practice has two benefits. First, it would help you get their exact details. Second, you would be able to create an impeccable subscriber persona by asking them any other preferences, such as delivery frequency, the topics of interest, and many others.
Wrapping up
The key to scrutinizing your email marketing campaign is scanning it from a subscriber’s perspective. Figure out what irks you the most. Whether it be a poorly-designed email or one with typos and grammatical errors. Your subscribers aren’t any different. So, what bothers you will almost certainly annoy them too. Learn from your past mistakes, and then the only ones left annoyed will be your competitors.
About the Author!
Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest growing PSD to Email coding companies, and specializes in crafting professional email templates, custom Mailchimp email templates design and coding in addition to providing email automation, campaign management, and data integration & migration services. He loves gadgets, bikes, jazz, and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.