Over 319.6 billion emails are rolled out every single day. These emails are sent and received by four billion global email users worldwide. At this pace, the figure has been predicted to cross the 376.4 billion per day mark by 2025. By then, the number of global email users will reportedly reach a staggering 4.6 billion.
Despite the ever-growing popularity of social platforms, chat applications, and messengers, email has successfully defended and held onto its “Most Preferred Communication Channel” title for years.
We’ve witnessed some so-called marketing gurus or experts claim email marketing to be nothing but an old-school, dead marketing strategy. But, let me just put some numbers right in front of you:
- 64% of SMBs use email marketing to reach out to their customers.
- Four out of every five digital marketers have reported that they prefer email marketing over social media marketing.
- For every dollar you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42. That’s a gigantic 4,200% ROI.
- 31% of B2B marketers claim email marketing to be the most preferred way to nurture leads.
- 81% of B2B marketers have reported email marketing to be the most used form of content marketing.
In short, email marketing is not DEAD. Instead, it’s one of the best and most effective digital marketing strategies of all time. If I could, I’d induct it to the “Digital Marketing Hall of Fame” at a moment’s notice.
One of the big reasons why most businesses and email marketers fail with their email marketing efforts – they do it all wrong. And we do not want you to go through the same – which is why we have prepared a list of the five mistakes email marketers to make all the time.
5 Common Email Marketing Mistakes Businesses Should Avoid
Here’s the list:
- Rolling Out Generic Emails
- Not Including Clear CTAs
- Penning Boring Subject Lines
- Trying to Sell Too Hard
- Avoiding Customer Segmentation
Rolling Out Generic Emails
70% of millennials have reported that they are frustrated by brands that roll out the same-old generic newsletters that are completely irrelevant. Rolling out generic emails is one of the big mistakes most marketers and businesses make.
Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% highly likely to be opened. At the same time, 71% of consumers have claimed a personalized experience to have a major impact on their decision to open and read a brand’s email.
When it comes to email marketing, personalization is the key to success.
These days, we receive dozens, if not hundreds, of irrelevant emails from brands we didn’t submit our details to. And that’s extremely frustrating.
And forwarding the same set of irrelevant emails to every single customer on your list will make it even worse for you.
Hence, it’s critical for brands to avoid rolling out such generic emails and focus on their personalization efforts.
Over 74% of marketers claim targeted personalization to have helped them increase customer engagement rate. Personalized emails successfully deliver six times higher transactional rates.
From subject line to email content to CTAs, make sure that your emails are highly personalized and are rolled out to the right set of audience.
Not Including Clear CTAs
If you’re rolling out weekly newsletters, you might have a purpose behind it.
While one purpose may obviously be to deliver value, another would be to make your customers head over to your website and take the desired action like purchase your product or schedule a call.
Well, it can be anything.
It does not matter what the end goal is – you need to convey it in your email in a clear-cut manner.
For example, if you want your customers to schedule a call with you, you need to have a “Book a Call” option somewhere. Or, if you want them to purchase one of your products, add a “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” CTA.
But while adding CTAs, don’t overdo them. After all, you don’t want to confuse your email recipients and make them hit the “Unsubscribe” option.
BONUS TIP: Personalized CTAs convert 202% better than standard or default ones. Try to add personalized CTAs wherever possible.
Penning Boring Subject Lines
An average person receives over 121 emails every single day. And you might be receiving the same number – this includes promotional ones as well.
With so many brands flooding your mailbox, you might not get the chance to open every single one of them. The ones you are most likely to open are:
- Business Related Emails
- Personal Emails
- Emails from Brands You Love Interacting With
- Personalized Emails with a Promising & Attention-Catching Subject Line
What if I told you that I could help you build a 7-figure business in well over a year? And if I fit the words “Build a 7-figure business” somewhere in my subject line – you’re most likely to click through. But my advice – don’t craft all-promise, no-action subject lines. If you can help someone build a 7-figure business in a year, you can go ahead. However, you need to make sure that your subject lines are realistic and on-point.
But while doing so, make sure that your subject lines are:
- Realistic
- Short, Sweet & On-Point
- Don’t Trick Your Audience
- Personalized
- Professional
Promising too much isn’t advised – as your audience might be receiving dozens of all-promise, no-action emails all the time.
Trying to Sell Too Hard
If you want to be successful at email marketing, stop selling and start delivering value. As I mentioned before, dozens of brands are trying to put their products or services in front of your audience. And they all want the same thing – sell as many of their products as they possibly can.
While the purpose of your email should be to sell your products or services, don’t try to sell too hard. Or don’t try it at all.
Rather, focus on your audience’s pain points and problems. Build email newsletters revolving around them and try to offer a meaningful solution. Rather than pushing your brand in front of your audience, delivering value will help you pull your prospects and customers towards you.
If you run a pest control agency in Boise, roll out “5 Most Common Pest Control Mistakes” or “5 Pest Control Tips” email newsletters on a weekly basis. Sharing valuable tips and tricks will help you win your audience’s trust and position yourself as a credible, authoritative, and most importantly, an industry expert.
Avoiding Customer Segmentation
Don’t roll out top-of-the-funnel emails to prospects who have already interacted with your business and are at the very bottom. And vice-versa. Another big mistake most marketers make – they don’t create email drip campaigns and end up sending the same email to everyone on their mailing list.
But here’s what’s important to understand – not every single person on your list will be at the same stage of the buyer’s journey. Some may have already purchased your product or service, whereas some might be lost leads. Others – they may have decided not to go with your services at all.
The secret to achieving success with email marketing – you need to cater to the needs of different people at different stages of their customer journey. That’s what customer segmentation will help you with.
Let’s say – one of your customers has not purchased a product from your store in the last 30 days. You would obviously want to send him a “30% discount on your next purchase email” to retain him/her. But the same email doesn’t necessarily need to be rolled out to everyone on your list.
Avoid Making These Email Marketing Mistakes!
There’s no secret hack to build a 100% results-guaranteed email marketing strategy.
In the realm of digital marketing, you’ll always make mistakes.
The only way to get better – identify them and implement the much-needed measures to optimize your strategy.
While we’ve shared the top 5 email marketing mistakes list with you, you may end up making many. Despite that, your focus should be on identifying these mistakes and testing different approaches to hit your KPIs consistently.
Or else – you can just focus on your business’ growth-related activities and let our experts do the heavy lifting.
Don’t wait around!
Hire the #1 email marketing agency in Boise today.
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