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Common Email Marketing Mistakes

Friday, September 18, 2009

Common Email Marketing MistakesFriday, September 18, 2009

1. Marketing Without Permission



Sending emails without the explicit permission of your recipients makes

you a spam sender. This is illegal and is an excellent way to destroy

your reputation.





your reputation.

There are a lot of email marketers out there who take the easy and

wrong way out; they purchase email lists, or create lists unethically by

compiling them from the Internet.





your reputation.




The first step for you as an email marketer is to gather permission from

your customers. This step should be carried out before you start

pumping in money and effort in your marketing endeavor.





your reputation.




The first step for you as an email marketer is to gather permission from

your customers. This step should be carried out before you start

pumping in money and effort in your marketing endeavor.

Getting permission is not all that difficult and goes a long way in

reducing your spam complaints and legal issues, increasing

deliverability and vastly improving your open and click through rates.


2. Ineffective List Creation




Your email list is critical for successfully managing your email campaign.

In fact, your list is so important that it is what determines the success or

failure of your campaign.







True, it is not always the easiest thing to choose the perfect list.

However, there are a number of tried and tested techniques that should

work well for you.









work well for you.

At the same time, there are certain common mistakes that are made

frequently by email marketers and should be avoided at all costs. For

instance, using outdated email lists that have been collecting dust for

over a year will provide you with nothing but inactive emails.









work well for you.





Similarly, renting shady lists will simply result in you illegally sending out

spam mails; this could lead to you getting caught as a spammer and you

would then have to pay the consequences.









work well for you.





Similarly, renting shady lists will simply result in you illegally sending out

spam mails; this could lead to you getting caught as a spammer and you

would then have to pay the consequences.

Another common mistake is bringing back to life inactive house lists; this

is another sure fire way to be labelled a spammer. Avoid these mistakes

at all costs.


3. Bad Subject Lines




As an email marketer, your goal is to get your recipients to not only open

your email but also to read its content. Your subject line plays a huge

role in making this goal a reality.







Unfortunately, many email marketers fail to see the correlation between

an effective subject line and a great response rate. Many times the

subject line is a last minute effort and at times it is even left as an empty

field.










field.

It is not a question of filling in the subject line; your heading must be

relevant, effective and something that grabs the attention of the

recipient. Your subject line must give the recipient a feel for the content

of your email.










field.

It is not a question of filling in the subject line; your heading must be

relevant, effective and something that grabs the attention of the

recipient. Your subject line must give the recipient a feel for the content

of your email.

Keep your heading simple and honest; avoid trying to hard sell your

email with subjects such as “Huge Discount”.


4. Sales Rather Than Relationships




The mistake here is that email marketers tend to use email explosions to

carry out their campaigns. Launching emails at unknown recipients is a

complete waste of effort.







What must be understood is that a successful email campaign is one

that is targeted at the right people and slowly but surely builds a long

term relationship. Sending out emails to random people is about as

subtle as throwing a bomb; all you will be left with is a destruction zone.











You need to work on those people who have given you the green flag in

terms of permission; these people want to read what you send them, are

interested in providing you feedback and are a good investment in terms

of time and effort as they have the potential to become long lasting

relationships











You need to work on those people who have given you the green flag in

terms of permission; these people want to read what you send them, are

interested in providing you feedback and are a good investment in terms

of time and effort as they have the potential to become long lasting

relationships

So don’t bomb your recipients; build them up.


5. Failing to Test Campaigns




Unfortunately a lot of email marketers realize too late that their

marketing strategy could have been vastly improved upon before

launching it full scale.







This is because they tend to launch their campaigns without any prior

testing. The result? Absolutely no response. This is a shame especially

since email newsletters are such a prime method of testing different

options.







This is because they tend to launch their campaigns without any prior

testing. The result? Absolutely no response. This is a shame especially

since email newsletters are such a prime method of testing different

options.

Try out different subjects; change your content around, experiment with

images and pictures and test them all out on a sample group. Once you

see what combination gets the best result, that’s when you should start

sending your emails out to your entire email list.


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