9 Signs You Are Doing Your Email Marketing Wrong

Email marketing remains one of the most effective instruments when it comes to establishing a direct line of communication to the target audience. In fact, even one perfectly polished electronic letter can turn an addressee into a customer and drive sales. Even more, it also can help to boost brand loyalty and take a company to the next level.

If you realize that your email marketing campaign isn't bringing the expected results, check the list below for the most common email marketing mistakes. It’s never too late to improve your strategy.

You don’t know your target audience well enough

When you compose an email, you should clearly understand who will read it.

What are the age, gender, ethnicity, and preferences of your target audience? What do your prospective customers know about your brand today? Additionally, what kind of information would they like to get in the future?

Without the answers to these questions, you will not be able to create a valuable message to impress your target audience. Moreover, you will not be able to define which writing style and tone of voice will appeal to them the most.

In other words, if you want to do your email marketing right, you should start with a detailed marketing research.

Email is too long and unstructured

Modern people are too busy to spend time reading extremely long texts. If an addressee clicks a subject line and sees more than 5 paragraphs, he'll immediately close or delete the email.

Clients are ready to spend only 2 minutes to review the text, so every letter should have a very clear structure.

It would be great if you can split the text into 2 to 4 paragraphs with each paragraph consisting of 2 to 3 sentences each. Total word count of the email shouldn’t exceed 150 words. It’s more than enough to express major ideas and grab the client’s attention.

Start your message from the salutation and then go straight to the point. State your offer and then go into the details. You can end your letter with a short closing paragraph, reminding your customer on how valuable he is to a company.

You compose an ineffective subject line

If you want to increase the open rate of your email, you should come up with an interesting yet relevant subject line. A customer should clearly understand why he should read this very letter: to get a discount, learn more about the new promotional campaign, take part in a survey, review a product, etc.

The problem is that some marketers try to come up with a unique subject line, forgetting that it must correspond with a core message. When customers are overloaded with such super creative yet meaningless letters, they consider them as spam.

Consequently, clients start losing their trust in the brand.

You improperly use CTA

If your letter doesn’t contain any call to actions, it’s unlikely that your marketing campaign will bring positive results. You should prompt your target audience what to do after reading an email. Depending on your goal, you can invite addressee to complete the following actions: to add a product to the cart, shop, sign up, etc.

Moreover, your letter should contain only one call-to-action button. When you use two or more different CTAs, customers feel confused and won't click any links at all.

Take a look at a great example created by Avast. This email includes valuable information and only one CTA. As a result, most of the users clearly understood the message and pushed “Keep my Avast account” button. It’s not a surprise that the click-through rate of this email marketing campaign was extremely high.

Screenshot source: private email received from Avast

You don’t proofread your emails

If you value the reputation of your company, you should proofread every email carefully. Letter, which is full of typos and spelling mistakes, can affect the customers’ confidence in your brand and your company.

You should check that every word, comma, and dot is used correctly. You should proofread text at least twice to make sure that your email is perfect. Also, you can ask your co-workers or utilize professional proofreading services to help you.

Email marketing doesn’t match your branding strategy

Email marketing is a part of your branding strategy, so it should correspond with the company’s core values and vision. However, it happens that some marketers forget this simple rule and create emails which contradict their business concept.

For instance, a company, which produces the exclusive luxury furniture, has no right to communicate with the wealthy customers in an informal language. Even more, this enterprise should give up utilizing the standard email templates and design unique fancy layouts. Every single letter should support the brand image.

See Also: Why You Should Consider Email Marketing

You don’t personalize your message

Every client wants to feel special and want to get exclusive offers. With the help of today's advanced technologies, you can collect clients’ private data and use it for crafting personalized emails. You can start your letter with the addressee’s name or make a unique proposal based on his recent browsing history.

For instance, company CheapOair sent an email that offered to save up to $25 on air tickets from Guatemala to Cancun which a customer had been looking for. It’s more likely that the client will use this promo code to book a flight if it really matches his upcoming traveling plans.

Screenshot source: private email received from CheapOair

Email doesn’t contain any visual elements

The perception of visual information flows faster and more effectively, comparing to the perception of text and speech. For this reason, emails which include eye-catching pictures bring better results.

A customer needs just 3 seconds to look through a content and make a decision to delete an email. So, it’s very important to add an image which will grab the client’s attention and encourage him to read the core message attentively.

Depending on the peculiarities of your email marketing campaign, you can use photos, illustrations, gifs, infographics, quotes, charts or any other relevant visual elements.

You don’t set clear goals

Before launching an email marketing campaign, you should set concrete measurable goals, which you would like to achieve. Otherwise, you will not be able to measure the results of your hard work.

You should not only define the desirable levels of open rate and click-through rate but also ROI. You should clearly understand whether email marketing is effective for your business or not. There are many other channels you can use to promote your product. Be sure that you have distributed your marketing budget wisely.

In conclusion

If you have just found out that you do your email marketing wrong, please don’t panic.

Now that you know the possible root of the problem, you can find an effective solution. In fact, you are halfway to success!

Learn from your mistakes and improve your current strategy. If you feel that you should change everything about your approach to email marketing, feel free to start a new campaign from scratch.