There are many mistakes that an email marketing consultant can make when creating an email marketing campaign. However, there are some top contenders of things you should never, ever do! Continue reading to find out what those mistakes are so that you don’t make them, or so that you recognize them when you see them happen.
1. Not personalizing the sender email address
This is one mistake that many email marketing consultants often make, no matter their experience. The inbound marketing method is really what solidifies this tactic. Everything should be personal, about building relationship and nurturing relationships. So, anyway you can do that, you should!
That’s why when you are sending out emails to leads or customers it shouldn’t come from a generalized email like info@ or support@ it should come from someone actually within that company like anna@. Don’t be afraid to build that relationship with your potential leads.
Really though, aren’t you more likely to open up an email from anna@companyname.com as opposed to info@companyname.com?
2. Not being personal in the email
If you’re starting the email off without someone’s name, just forget it. There should always be a name there so that you are setting the tone and personalizing it for that person. Make them feel like they aren’t just another number in a long list of hundreds of emails just like the one they received.
Adding personalized recommendations into marketing emails can increase sales conversion rates by 15-25%, and click-through rates by 25-35%. (Exact Target)
However, you also don’t want to get too personal. There’s a fine line! Consider this piece of advice from HubSpot.
“Avoid over-personalization by leaving un-vetted, user-generated data out of your emails. For example, information collected in a single lead generation form may be inaccurate and turn the customer off when repeated in an email. You don’t want to start out an email relationship by calling someone a wrong or made-up name! Remember that if a piece of personalized data does not directly correlate to a future step in your lead nurturing or sales process, then it’s best to leave it out.” (HubSpot)
3. Being annoying/spammy
Well this one is kind of a no brainer but you know, there are still people that just don’t get it. Why is that? Every single day we are deleting spammy emails. They are a waste of time and make you look bad as a company.
4. Not using segmented lists
Do not just fire your email out to every single person on your email list. Yes, it’s tempting. With one click of your mouse that email could potentially be sent to hundreds of people and have more opens but what will your conversion rate be? Not very good because the majority of those people probably couldn't care less about that email you just sent them.
A recent MailChimp Study found that segmented lists resulted in a 14.4 percent higher open rate and 14.9 percent higher click rate than non-segmented email lists. (HubSpot)
5. Sending to those who have unsubscribed
No, no, no. Just no. Don’t do this! An email marketing consultant should know better, but there are always those that unfortunately don’t! When someone has unsubscribed from your emails and you continue to email them—it’s illegal. That’s right, against the law. This also goes for text message marketing (SMS).
Now remember, this list is only a few of the most common mistakes. There are plenty of others that I could talk about but I would be going on forever. We’ll leave some for the next blog post! :)
What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to email marketing?
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