So, you have managed to increase email open rates for your marketing campaigns, but are you earning satisfactory returns as per your marketing spends? Whether you are a B2C or B2B organization below is a list of email marketing mistakes that you may want to exclude for your next email marketing campaign and henceforth.
There have been many articles discussing methods of performing a successful email campaign, however, the presentation of your email will determine the click-through-rates for your brand/website.
Here we go:
Biggest of All Email Marketing Mistakes – Targeting All Your Audience with the Same Content
Your email body will determine the click-through-rate to your website. You will see positive results only if the subscribers receive relevant and personalized content.
Tip: Targeting all your audience with the same content, you’ll be providing the same landing page (in most cases: website homepage) for every customer segment. In this case, subscribers will be forced to browse your website for finding their favorite products. Most probably, many of them will simply get bored and quit without converting.
90.7% of US advertising and marketing professionals perform segmentation to better target and engage customers. Out of which 50.5% said they are using more advanced segmentation methods.
Source: eMarketer
Trick: Understanding your audience’s demographics, preferences, purchase and website behavior, you can customize each email marketing campaign with content that is actionable and encourage your audience to further take interest with your brand.
Neglecting Personalization
Considering point number one, you now understand the benefits of list segmentation and will be able to craft correct messages for the right audience.
But your email content will determine whether your audience will further engage with your brand or not.
Tip: Offer information about your products and sale offers in a way that can showcase the value for purchasing or help your audience in their daily activities. This will automatically encourage them to click-through your call-to-action buttons.
96% of organizations believe that email personalization can improve email marketing performance according to a study by The Aberdeen Group.
Trick: Digging in your existing customer database and matching your email marketing campaigns and offers to your audience’s needs will surely improve click-through-rates for your website landing pages.
Lack of Trust Factor
Even with the most beautiful deals and offers, your audience will first want to be sure that the email is coming from a trusted source.
Tip: Apart from creating the best email designs and valuable information you may want to include trust symbols i.e. information about your brand, happy customer’s testimonials, shipping details or even returns policy.
Also, your subscribers are less likely to engage with a brand that approaches them from @noreply email address.
40% of Americans nearly always rely on online reviews when making purchasing decisions as per Pew Research Center.
Trick: Include customer reviews and testimonials in your emails to add credibility and show your brand’s good reputation. Also, make sure your Sender name includes the name of your company.
Diverting to Wrong Landing Pages
You have now managed to hold your audience with relevant content and trust-factors. But, if your landing page does not reflect the same details you have promised in your email content, your subscribers might automatically feel frustrated and bounce rates for your website may increase.
Tip: Designing the look and feel of your landing pages similar to your email body will keep them on the same track and encourage to take action towards the products and services that your offer.
Customized landing pages—which send the user directly to the item or offer featured in the email—can increase conversion rates by more than 25 percent.
Source: McKinsey & Company
Trick: Instead of diverting your audience to your current website page, create a new landing page focusing only on the content and deals that you have mentioned in the email.
Non-Mobile and Browser Friendly
Last, but not the least you need to ensure that the audience is able to engage with your brand and offers via their smartphones, in an equally qualitative way as they would on a computer.
Tip: Make sure you design responsive email templates and landing pages that look great on various browsers and devices.
86% of smartphones users stated they use their mobile for personal e-mail.
Source: Statista
Trick: With the help of an affordable mobile app development company, you can easily ensure a responsive website as app developers are always updated with the latest W3C standards, SEO-parameters, and testing methods (that include A/B testing) to ensure well-optimized landing pages for your email marketing campaigns.
Over to you
With the above-mentioned email marketing mistakes, I’m sure you can stop yourself from making the most common yet costly mistakes while running your email marketing campaigns.
Additionally, automating your email marketing campaigns will give you an added advantage by ensuring a well-organized email marketing practice to ensure consistency, relevancy, and optimization with time.
About the Author:
Anil Parmar is the co-founder of Glorywebs, a full-service digital marketing agency that specializes in WordPress web development, web design, app development and more. Websites, plugins and mobile apps we develop have a common # 1 goal: Keep it as simple as possible for end users. Follow him on Twitter @abparmar99 & say Hi!