We all love email, right? Well, perhaps not. But a good email containing a special offer that’s interesting and relevant is always welcome. Email marketing done right is an extremely powerful tactic, but so many companies get it wrong. In this latest video, I’ll share with you six email marketing tactics that are wasting your time. Watch it and you’ll be better able to send your customers timely messages that are relevant to their needs. There’s a copy of my script below the video if you’d rather read. Any question, feel free to ask them via Twitter or Facebook.
If there are people on your email list who haven’t opened one of your messages in months or years, they’re unlikely to suddenly start interacting with you again.Go through your email list and remove inactive members at least once a quarter. By removing people who no longer read what you send out, you’ll boost your open and click rates.
2 – Sending everyone the same message
Your customers all have different needs. That means if you send everyone on your email list the same message, it’s not going to be relevant to a significant number of recipients.
To avoid this, use information such as gender, age, location and purchase history to divide your customers into groups with similar characteristics. This is called segmentation.
You can then target these groups with emails tailored to their specific needs, reducing the chances that people will get irrelevant messages from you.
3 – Using multiple calls to action
If may be tempting to pack your email with a huge number of different actions that the reader can take. The theory being that once you’ve got someone’s attention, you want them to do something that profits your business.
However, if you have multiple calls to action in one email, you run the risk of confusing people, meaning they’ll take no action at all.
Each email campaign you run should have a single purpose, and that purpose should be reflected in a single call to action.
Leave people in no doubt as to what you want them to do next.
4 – Basing campaigns on guess work
You may have a gut feeling as to what your customers want from email marketing, but so often gut feelings turn out to be wrong.
If you’re just guessing about what you should put in email, then you’re bound to be missing out on opens, clicks and sales.
Use split testing to see what people respond to and constantly work to improve your emails.
A good email marketing tool should offer you a range of stats and the ability to split test your emails.
5 – Buying email lists
Buying email lists is mostly a bad idea. Not only will most of the people on the list have no interest in hearing from your business, you’ll also run the risk of breaking the law and of having your emails blacklisted as spam.
When you’re first starting out, buying an email list may seem like a tempting shortcut, but it can cause lasting damage and land you with a hefty fine.
Build your list organically. It’s worth the effort.
6 – Overhyped subject lines
Attention grabbing subject lines are good. Subject lines that promise something you can’t deliver are terrible.
You may be tempted to do everything you can to get people to open your emails. But if that includes a lofty promise that isn’t followed up on in the message itself, don’t expect people to click through to your site.
By all means, work on making your subject lines as good as possible, but don’t waste your subscriber’s time by trying to trick them into opening your messages.
So that was “6 email marketing tactics that waste your time”. I will see you next time.
