Last week we talked about 4 of the 8 mistakes that you should avoid making when email marketing so that you don’t sabotage your email campaigns or the results you get from them. Today we’ll give you the other 4 mistakes. Take note!
5. Using illegal databases
It is essential that you obtain explicit consent from users in order to send them sales communications, otherwise you will be breaking the law and you will be obtaining data records that will be withdrawn as soon as possible. Keep in mind that they will be people who won’t be interested in your products or services and they won’t be your target audience. This means that you will be wasting your time and resources on people who will possibly never become potential clients of your brand. It’s also important to consider that, with every email you send, you must offer the user the ability to unsubscribe from them. It’s nothing to be afraid of as it’s better for your users to unsubscribe rather than mark your email as spam, given this could affect the deliverability of your campaigns. Remember that it’s best to clean your database and in turn, this will help you to get rid of users who do not form part of your target market.
6. Using “No reply” email addresses
You must avoid using “no reply” email addresses as the sender. This is still a widespread practice and it has negative connotations in terms of your image and engagement.
It is important to give the user every chance to interact with you, as this fosters an image of a brand that responsive to the needs of its users and is one which values good customer care. You must also remember that you are obliged to include a valid contact address in your email campaign.
7. Prioritising brand image over deliverability
As an agency, we often encounter this problem. Aesthetics and brand image tend to be prioritised over deliverability in campaigns. This happens when we resist dispensing with special fonts, gradients and other visual elements linked to branding that we can’t transfer into HTML/CSS as it’s not supported by various client email accounts. The solution therefore is to use images instead of text. However, this can cause deliverability issues when the image takes precedence over the email content. In addition, it may reduce the download speed of the images themselves and we all agree that, in a context where emails are increasingly being opened using mobile devices, this is not what we want. Therefore, you have to achieve a balance in the design to be able to format the text without losing the brand image.
8. Failing to make an effort in getting to know your users and their behaviour
It is important that you make an effort in getting to know the users who form part of your database. Learning about their interests can help you to know what they’re looking for and what you can offer them. Not doing so will mean that you won’t match their expectations that they have in relation to your brand or products and that can increase the unsubscribe rates in your email marketing campaigns. It’s also vital to analyse their behaviour (open rate, clicks, browsing on the site) in order to get to know them well and to learn any recurrent themes. By having such knowledge about your clients, you will even be able to get into their heads and anticipate their actions. You must bear in mind that in order to correctly classify and segment your subscribers, you have to carry out a comprehensive process of first.
