Throughout this month we are focusing on email campaigns, the tips, tricks, dos and don’ts to get you on track. Today’s blog looks at what not to do in an email campaign. As though they are a quick and easy option to put together, they can also quickly and easily go wrong.

Here are seven easy mistakes to make they may cost you business.

 

Send it to everyone

You have some email addresses. You know you should go through them really, but that takes a lot of time that you just don’t have. So you send your one email to the entire list.

This brings you a lot of bounces, unsubscribes and generally not a great return on your ‘effort’. So why doesn’t it work?

Well there are a number of things wrong with this scenario. Firstly, you should regularly clean your data, as database’s tend to decay 22.5% each year. You should also take the time to ensure everyone has opted in for your emails. Then you need to look at the other data you have. Check out our previous post for more on this. But really you need to be making sure that the email that lands in your customers inbox is one that is relevant, useful and personal to them, otherwise what is their incentive to buy?

 

Put really long subject lines

So you want to make sure the customer knows exactly what they are opening, so you write a brilliant subject line. It’s a little long, but it’ll be okay, your customers will understand once they open the email.

Wrong. If your subject line can’t be seen fully in the preview, chances are they won’t open the email full stop.

It has been proven that more emails are opened when they have a shorter subject line and ideally you should be keeping them under 50 characters. Make the line as short, snappy and to the point as you can. It should point to what the content is, but the email itself should explain what’s going on, the subject line is just the precursor.

 

Bad timing

Newsjacking or scheduled emails can go horribly wrong pretty quickly. Always check current events and the schedule of the email, and if in doubt of how it will be interpreted, always get a second (non-biased) opinion.

Newsjacking or topical content is a brilliant tool, but when you are delivering that content straight to someone’s inbox, you need to take extra steps to ensure it won’t cause offence.

 

Spamming the hell out of people’s inboxes

Have you ever thought ‘Ooo that’s the fourth email I’ve received from that company this week, I definitely want to go and check out what they have to offer’ … No didn’t think so. So why do we think it’s okay when we’re the business?

Your emails should be useful, and if you have to send 5 in a row, they might not be providing all that benefit to your customer. Not to mention they should be expected, and your customer will most likely be expecting all the information they need in the minimal amount of emails.

Carefully plan out your email schedule, and explain at the point of signing up what users can expect in terms of emails from you. If you state then and there you will be sending an email every day and they still sign up, then that’s okay.

Also remember to only re-send the same content to non-openers. Don’t annoy the people who are actually clicking your email.

 

Not suitable for mobile

Did you know that 45% of email opens occur on a mobile phone? So why when building up your email do you not consider what it will look like on a mobile phone?

Consider how your images will resize. Is there a lot of text? Will people be having to try and expand to read it? If you received an email that just didn’t look right on your mobile, would you click back off it and forget all about it? I’m guessing you probably would.

You have to design for mobile first if you want to keep up with your customers. Luckily most free to use email programmes such as MailChimp already use responsive templates, you just need to make the most of them!

 

No obvious action

You’ve got a great subject line, loads of your recipients have opened, but then nothing. Why is nothing happening? You’ve spent so long putting together this fabulous email with a beautiful design. And it’s full of loads of useful information too!

But what did you actually ask your customers to do? Was there a singular call to action which was obvious to the reader? If you are bombarding your readers with lots of beautiful pictures, and all of this information, how do they know what to do next? They may just absorb everything and continue with their day.

All of your email should be pointing to a single call to action which is clear to the reader, and appealing enough to inspire them to click. Make it as easy as possible for the reader to complete the action, and for you to be able to measure the result.

 

Not bothering to test, or read through, or just generally speeding through.

Again, we love to rush and get these things out don’t we? But how do we know our links work? That it makes sense? And that its going to achieve what you want it to achieve? You need to test it!

Send it to yourself, to your colleagues, to a beta set of customers. You need to test drive this to make sure what you send out will have people looking forward to your emails, not unsubscribing from your list.

You also need to commit to the changes you may need to make. Though you may love the design, or you really hadn’t factored in the time to change your CTA button, you have to change to make it better. Otherwise what was the point in testing? Or sending for that matter.

 

What has been the worst email you’ve received and why? What would be your advice on what not to do in an email campaign? Let us know in the comments!

Email has changed in 2016. With a boom in automation and mobile use, we take a look at what this has done to email marketing statistics.

Email is a marketing tool which goes back and forth as being “dead” and not worth much. But as with every marketing tool, if it fits with your strategy, and is done well, it can achieve great results, just as these email marketing statistics show.

 

Email Automation

Email automation has taken a huge jump; as online shopping is now proving to be the consumer’s favourite. Acting as an instore offer, or a happy to help assistant, triggered emails help to get customers to the till. Whether that’s incentive to come back and pick up their basket, or to buy a little extra than what they normally would.

Using inbound methodology of allowing the customer to control the sales process, automated emails offer the company to chance to convert the customer.

So does this actual work?

• B2C marketers who leverage automation have seen conversion rates as high as 50% – eMarketer
• Automated email messages average 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher click-through rates than “business as usual” marketing messages. – Epsilon Email
• Companies who send automated emails are 133% more likely to send relevant messages that correspond with a customer’s purchase cycle. – Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups

From these stats it appears so. Automation, when done correctly, seems to be the perfect balance of nudging consumers down the sale funnel, whilst the customer is still in control.

Will this continue to be the case?

Prediction: Email automation tools become even more useful, offering email marketers more ways to creatively use them and an ever expanding list of triggers – Daniel Codella of Zurb

 

Email and mobile

As you may have noticed, there has been a lot of stories about mobile ready website, and mobile friendly ads, and email marketing is no exception.

Over half of email is now opened on mobile, meaning your beautifully crafted email needs to able to open on mobile to be successful.

This means looking at responsive design. Perhaps a more ‘drag and drop’ style then hard coding your email. Meaning more people will receive the full benefit when they open.

But is this something you really need to worry about? Let’s take a look at the stats:

• About 53% of emails are opened on mobile devices. – Campaign Monitor
• Though the number of new Internet users is growing at less than 10% per year, the number of new smartphone subscribers is growing at a 20%+ rate. –TechCrunch
• It is more common for a reader’s second open to be on a mobile device than it is on a different device: 70% will stick with their mobile device, and 30% will go elsewhere. – Campaign Monitor

Mobile marketing is no longer a gimmick. It’s something you need to consider in every aspect of your marketing campaign. Especially with email.

Prediction: Email marketing will experience a second coming of age in 2016, thanks to mobile strategies, more integrations and more insights from data. – Chad White of Litmus.

 

Email personalisation and segmentation

Automation has helped with email personalisation and segmentation, as emails are triggered by a user’s action. But if you are looking at a more traditional email marketing campaign, is it still worth segmenting?

Yes. Of course it is! The user who is receiving your email doesn’t know if they are part of a “traditional campaign” or an “automated” one. All they care about is if that email is of use to them personally.

So should you be taking the time to segment your data? Let’s take a look at the stats:

• Personalized email messages improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversions by 10%. – Aberdeen
• Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. –  Campaign Monitor
• Personalized emails deliver 6x higher transaction rates. – Experian

The truth is, as consumers we provide a lot of data to companies, and when we receive un-personal, generic emails, it’s kind of a kick in the teeth. Use the data you have, cater your messages, and you will receive the rewards.

Prediction: “hyper-personalization” is becoming a reality. Specialist third-party services pop up in deliverability, testing, live content, remarketing, predictive analytics, email advertising & customer intelligence. – Rene Kulka

 

 

Email Vs Social Media

Email marketing is often compared to social media. However, this is not something you should be doing. Email and social stand at different parts of the sales funnel. Social media is there to attract, and draw new people in. Whereas email is to convert, as they have already filtered down the sales funnel.

So of course statistics are going to look amazing for conversion levels of email, but sometimes you need to view these in context. Here are just some of the statistics out there:

• You are 6x more likely to get a click-through from an email campaign than you are from a tweet.- Campaign Monitor
• Email marketing drives more conversions than any other marketing channel, including search and social. – Monetate
• A message is 5x more likely to be seen in email than via Facebook. – Radicati

Don’t choose between email or social, as they are not an either/or option. Both have their merits, and their faults, but they are two very different things.

Just remember that if you have someone’s email address that you have permission to use, chances are, they are more willing to convert as they have passed on their details.

 

Other email statistics

Just a few last email statistics for the road, to give you thought for your next campaign.

• The total number of worldwide email accounts is expected to increase to over 4.3 billion accounts by year-end 2016. – Radicati Group
• 76% of marketers see active growth in their number of email subscribers. –Ascend2
• Open rate is highest when companies send two emails per month. – Database Marketing Institute
• Email marketing was the biggest driver of Black Friday transactions, with 25.1% of sales originating from the marketing channel. – Custora
• 65% of users prefer emails to contain mostly images, compared to 35% who prefer text. – HubSpot

 

Do you use email campaigns in your marketing? What do you think of these email statistics? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

If you require help or advice with your email campaign, then why not speak to the team about arranging a free marketing consultation to see if we could work together.