People have been debating the best email marketing practices since AOL’s You’ve Got Mail became widespread. When 68% of marketers say email marketing is a core part of their business, you know using emails to effectively market is seriously important to your business objectives.
While businesses are utilizing email more effectively today than they ever did back in the dial-up days, there are still many pitfalls to avoid. Follow this checklist to learn what you should not say in your email marketing campaign.
You’re as Boring as Possible
When your subject line fails to wow and your content is less than spectacular, you don’t engage with your target audience. There are over 122 billion emails sent every hour. Your email needs to stand out in the crowd! From your subject line to your content to your design, every part of your email needs to be inviting and appealing.
You Tell the Audience to Do Too Much
I don’t mean sharing insider stories about the funny thing Bob from Accounting did the other day. I mean you are putting way too many choices and calls-to-action on your email blasts. Some businesses think they need to cram as much as they can into an email to receive more value from it. This is wrong!
Giving users too many options of actions to take will cause them to ignore all of the options or become frustrated and unsubscribe. Instead, make each demand simple and concise. Have no more than three options to click in each email blast. Make sure each of these three options is related to a singular call-to-action.
You Are Not Clear
Much like the last point, you need to be absolutely clear in what you want your audience to do. If you want them to call today, then put the phone number in an easy-to-access and central location. If you want them to review, give an easy link to send a review with no extra steps required.
You also want to be clear in the flow of the email. The audience should be able to easily follow the path of the email with their eyes. If you have a wild email with a cluster of information in odd places, audiences will become overwhelmed and miss the message entirely. Direct the audience’s gaze easily and logically.
The Audience Doesn’t Know the Value They Are Receiving
In addition to everything else you need to hit with an email, you also need to tell the audience what value they are receiving from your email. This is a step that many businesses miss. Whatever you want the customer to do, you need to show them how the action is going to be valuable to them. Personalization here goes a long way!
You Send Too Many Emails
Let’s say you avoid every single problem above and have an outstanding email campaign. It will still be ineffective if you bombard your target audience with emails. You will also be spending quite a bit of money and receiving little ROI from your efforts.
The general rule of thumb is to send no more than three marketing emails per week. Less is best, however, so your email list doesn’t unsubscribe. You might also hit roadblocks if you send emails on certain days of the week. Try not to send emails on Mondays or Fridays and definitely don’t send on Saturday. Your emails will be deleted or not given proper attention if you send on these days.