Common Misconceptions and Mistakes Made by Email Marketers

Believe it or not, email marketing, as lucrative as it may be, is also one of the sub-branches of marketing that can go south really fast. “My campaigns never convert”,“Email marketing blows”, “I just can’t seem to do it right.” These are some of the most common sentiments from marketers – experienced and beginners alike. From this, it is clear and possible that most of the marketers who have experienced this, probably messed up in their campaigns somehow. While some of these mistakes are blatantly straightforward, most of them are not as direct as you would expect. Actually, in practically all cases, the marketers do not even get a whiff that they are doing something wrong. So without much further ado, these are the misconceptions and mistakes commonly made by email marketers.

The Misconceptions

The following are some of the greatest misconceptions made by email marketers

• Using a lot of images make the emails enticing
• Email verification is not necessary
• Email open rate doesn’t mean much
• Subject lines don’t mean much
• Email marketing is the cheapest method of marketing

The Mistakes

1. Sending Emails Without Asking for Permission

This is a concept that has, over the last few years, become more of a requirement but less of courtesy. There is simply no two-way about this. You need to obtain permission from your recipients first, before sending them any emails – no matter how important you think the message is. A few have gotten away with it but they do not get so far. There aren’t many tricks you can use to avoid asking for permission.

Make it clear – in your landing pages – the recipients are subject to periodically be receiving offers, emails, newsletters and other sorts of information once they submit their emails. Some recipients view this as an ultimatum making their response negative. Tactful marketers design their landing pages to have checkboxes where the recipient gets to choose whether they wish to receive emails in form of newsletters and offers in the future. This method has attracted more positive reviews from recipients. Sending emails without permission is intrusive, disrespectful and leads to being marked as spam.

2. Writing Lengthy Essays

No one wants to read through several paragraphs to get information. Studies have shown that recipients are more likely to read through short content and even generate leads. Make your emails short and to the point. It is advisable to use bullets that summarize the general idea instead of bombarding your subscribers with wordy content. Try to keep it within a single-screen view.

3. Using All CAPS

This is untactful to say the least. It gives the recipient the feeling of being yelled at. This is not how you want to make your subscribers feel. It will drive them away. Emphasis can be achieved through other methods like; using attractive colours in your texts or appealing to the eye and creative designs.

4. Using Vague CTAs

The whole point of a campaign is to generate leads and conversions; so, enriching your CTA links to make them enticing and specific is the way to go. Using links such as “Find out more” have generated poor results because the recipient feels like you are making them work for it. We hope you enjoyed this one. Check out our next post