Email marketing is useful to small business in so many ways, not least of all that it costs very little to create a campaign and can target a broad customer base with just a few clicks of a keyboard. Email marketing allows you to send offers and discounts, highlight new products or services and create calls-to-action, which get your customers coming to your site.
Creating one of these emails, however, can be an art in itself, and there are many commonly-made mistakes which can send your customers running for the hills! Here are five mistakes you should try to avoid:
Forgettable Subject Lines
The first thing that people see when they get a marketing email from you is the subject line. This is your opportunity to catch people’s attention, so the first and most critical mistake that you can make is having a boring subject line. People are fickle and have a short attention span, so if your email subject is dull as dishwater, people will delete your hard work before they even open it…or worse, could unsubscribe from your list altogether.
Not Maintaining Your List
Carefully crafting an email and sending it out to a list of hundreds of people who aren’t interested is a bit like shouting into a room full of people with earplugs in. Send out an email on a regular basis asking if people still want to be subscribed to your list and you’ll have a better chance of your marketing communications ending up in the inboxes of properly engaged clients.
Don’t Just Sell
If you’re sending emails on a regular basis, you need to make sure you hit an even balance when it comes to the content. Email subscribers usually sign up for a sense of added value, such as discounts or exclusive offers. If every email you send is sell, sell, sell, eventually it will start to fall on deaf ears and you’ll see your subscribers dwindle gradually. You don’t have to give something away at a cost to yourself, either; plenty of people will stay signed up to receive hints, tips, quotes, advice or even a joke!
Looking Unprofessional
This is especially risky if you’re designing emails yourself. Things like bad formatting, poor spelling and grammar or too much colloquial language can all cause your emails to look unprofessional. If writing isn’t your strong suit, ask a friend or trusted person to check your work before you hit send and risk alienating your customer base.
Don’t Use Cliched, Salesy Language
Try to remember that your customers are people, just like you, and think about how you’d like to be marketed to. Sales-heavy, cliched language can put people off in a heartbeat because it’s just so obvious. People don’t want to feel like they’re just seen as a walking, talking wallet so make sure you don’t treat them as such in your emails.
If you need help building email campaigns or just some guidance to write marketing emails, our 1-2-1 Mailchimp Workshops can guide you through the process, catering to your specific marketing goals.
