Avoid These Email Marketing Mistakes (And What To Do Instead)
Email marketing is still among the top means of communication for business. But very few businesses actually do it effectively, either leaving money on the table, or turning off subscribers with the content of the emails they send.
If you'd like to be a better email marketer, check out these tips on mistakes to avoid, and what to do instead:
3 Things to Avoid
=> Only sending email when you have something to sell
If you are in the business of selling a product or a service, your first and the most obvious instinct is to try to get people to buy with every communication you put out there. Bad idea.
This is a particularly big problem among affiliate marketers and ecommerce sites. But the result is that you'll come across as overly salesy, and turn a large number of prospects off from actually wanting to buy from you.
=> Sending email without permission
You may not intentionally be sending “spam,” but if you are sending unsolicited emails on behalf of your business more than once, you are violating ethical email marketing practices, and may well be on your way toward breaking the laws which govern this channel of communications between businesses and consumers.
=> Not sending email consistently
Could you imagine getting an email from a company you requested information from three months after your initial communication from them? It happens all the time. Don't let this happen to you and your business. Don't restrict your emails to your subscribers only when you’ve got something to say, or you'll be forgotten and ignored.
3 Things to Do Instead:
=> Offer a mix of content in your emails
Instead of constantly selling, mix things up a bit. In some emails, simply provide value based content. Perhaps it's sharing a tip or providing a link to a great article or a video you found somewhere. This will help train your audience to open your emails more often, because they are not always filled with salesrelated content.
Affiliates and bloggers often break this rule the most. Ecommerce sites do too, but they have a
better excuse. Even if you are an ecommerce site, try to occasionally send an email that is not all about the sales. Maybe it’s a gear list or maybe it’s a tutorial or howto piece. Just add some element of “give” to balance out the “take” of all the sales emails.
=> Get permission to send emails before you add someone to your list
Adding people to your email list who have given you their business card is a common practice, but it's not okay in this day and age of aggressive antispam laws. The same goes for automatically adding someone to your list when they purchase something.
You must make it clear, when someone provides their email to you, that it will be added to your mailing list, and also provide them with the means to easily optout should they desire.
=> Send regular emails
Email works best when it’s consistent. Now you don't need to be sending an email every day or even every week, but the more consistently and frequently you communicate, the more likely it will be that your name or business name will be remembered. And if your email content is good and engaging, your subscribers will look forward to receiving your content regularly.
Email marketing is still among the top means of communication for business. But very few businesses actually do it effectively, either leaving money on the table, or turning off subscribers with the content of the emails they send.