Business Tips: Common Email Marketing Mistakes You’ll Want To Avoid

When you are setting up an email marketing campaign, you will want to make sure that it has the desired result. If you spend a lot of time working on the campaigns and no one ends up visiting your ecommerce site, you will have wasted both your time and money. For this reason, a carefully planned email marketing strategy can be the best way to make your campaign count.

Below, we are going to offer some tips by looking at the common email marketing mistakes that some brands make. Read on to hear more about these and learn how to avoid them.

Lack of Planning

One of the biggest mistakes that ecommerce businesses make involves a lack of planning. Like any marketing strategy, careful planning can make the difference between a great campaign and one that isn’t very effective. The content within the email needs to be planned, the recipients need to be segmented and the email needs to be sent out at the right time. All of these aspects work together to create a well-thought out campaign and if they are not considered, it won’t go well. If you don’t typically plan your email marketing strategies in advance, try to give this a try next time. This way, you won’t be wasting your time.

Forgetting To Segment Customers

Often, it is much easier to send out a marketing email to everyone on your mailing list if you don’t have a lot of time to spend on this task. However, it can be a big mistake to avoid segmenting your customers as you can actually put people off visiting your site. Your customer base won’t all be interested in the same thing and will want to receive emails that are relevant to them. Segmentation is much easier than you think and there are plenty of tools that can help with this. Try to segment your audience and this will make all the difference in your next email marketing campaign.

Poorly Designed Emails

Another common mistake that many brands make is to send out an email that hasn’t been designed and branded in the right way. An email needs to get the attention of the reader right away, otherwise, they might end up closing it before they have even given it a second glance. To really make an email campaign work, it needs to be well-designed and must have the branding clearly visible from the moment it is opened by the recipient. When it comes to ecommerce email marketing, there are some great templates that you can use to create well-designed emails. This is something to check out if you haven’t already.

Breaking Data Protection Laws

If you are based in the EU or you are planning on sending out emails to any customers in the EU, you need to make sure that you are staying in line with any laws that surround data protection and email marketing. Thanks to GDPR, businesses need to be able to prove that customers have opted in to their email marketing lists and if they haven’t, they could face legal action. This is a mistake that many businesses make and it can be much more serious than the others on our list. To avoid a fine, allow customers to opt in to your emails and opt out if they would like them to stop. This way, you won’t be breaking the law and you can continue with your campaigns.

Forgetting About CTAs

Many ecommerce stores spend a lot of time working on the CTAs on their website but forget to add any effective ones into their email marketing campaigns. CTA stands for call to action and this is the phrase that is going to get your customers to click on your link and purchase a product. CTAs need to be well-thought out and they need to be tested. If no customers are clicking on your buttons, they might need to be adjusted. Don’t make the common mistake of forgetting to add these valuable tools into your campaigns.

Lack of Mobile Optimisation

With the majority of people now checking their emails on their smartphone or tablet, emails need to be optimised for these devices. This is something that not all ecommerce stores have yet recognised and this is a big mistake. Mobile optimisation is important both on the website and in the email campaigns. If a customer cannot read your marketing email properly on their mobile phone, they might delete it from their inbox. Most email marketing services will allow you to test out the mobile view but you should also check it on multiple devices. If you can do this, you will be sure that the email is ready to go.

Uninteresting Subject Lines

The final common mistake that businesses make in their marketing emails involves the subject lines that are attached. Subject lines are such small details when it comes to an email but they can be extremely important. If a subject line is not interesting enough, the email might not ever be opened. The subject line needs to grab the attention of the reader in their inbox and encourage them to open it up. If you struggle with writing effective subject lines, you can find some tips for improving these online. Don’t let a poor subject line get in the way of making that conversion!

Use These Tips

If you think that you are making any of these common mistakes when creating email marketing campaigns, you should try out some of the tips that we have given you in this article. Think about how well-designed your email is and don’t forget to focus on your subject lines. If you can put some of these tips into practice, you could find that you make a big difference in how effective your next campaigns are. Over time, you’ll learn what works for your customers and what you need to change.

Photo credits: eOffice