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6 Things You Should Never Do With Your Email Campaigns

When executed properly, email marketing campaigns can be a great way to build content. Done improperly, email campaigns can chew up countless hours with no reward. 

 

Point being, sometimes learning how to do things the right way requires learning what to avoid first.

 

Below are 6 things you should never do with your email campaigns.

 

1. Use the wrong mailing list

 

The most common mistake made in email marketing campaigns is using a mailing list that targets the wrong audience. No matter how great your ad copy, it will not be effective unless you reach the right market.

 

Purchasing the right mailing list is not easy because many companies will sell you lists without matching them with your targeted audience. Also, be wary of companies that offer to mail on your behalf because they typically distribute to random, unidentified populations.

 

2. Poor ad copy

 

Create branding and copy that captures the attention of your audience.

 

Typically, people do not immediately start reading the bulk of your content. They first start with a brand’s aesthetic then, move on to main words or phrases that stand out and finally, an ad copy is read.

 

Make sure that your ad is visually appealing, displays slogans, titles, and words that stand out. Ad copy should always be brief, descriptive, and call for a response.

 

If your ad copy has typos, poor grammar, or misspelled words consumers will be less likely to respond.

 

3. No call-for-action

 

Make sure to include a “call-for-action,” or encourage a response from consumers.

 

A call-for-action might be a coupon, sales event, a free consultation, anything really, but if you don’t include some reason for the consumer to respond, chances are, they won’t.

 

4. Busy layout

 

Direct marketing is not a good advertising vehicle to go crazy with design. Save the fancy stuff for marketing brochures and websites where readers have come to find out more information about your business.

 

Direct marketing most often involves reaching new markets, which means unsolicited intrusions into the lives of consumers.

 

The very nature of direct marketing calls for you to be brief. You are taking up consumer’s time- respect that in your ad!

 

Ads are typically postcards, inserts in mass mailers, a small banner ad in a publication, etc. Do not try to cram visual elements or words into small ads. If the space is small, design the ad in proportion to the space.

 

5. No professional marketer

 

Unless you are both a graphic designer and marketing professional, it is not likely that you will be able to develop the best campaign for your business. 

 

Hiring a professional to help with your email marketing campaign can get expensive. On the other hand, doing it wrong will end up costing more because you will get unfavorable results and eventually have to cover your tracks.

 

6. Ignore social media

 

The most successful campaigns come from using social media. Since social media occurs in real time, you are able to contact recipients and get responses immediately.

 

Having said that, do not use social media as your only point of contact. Instead, use social media as a back up for your main distribution avenue. Not all businesses will need to utilize social media, but those that do should list that account on their main website. Try contacting through Twitter first, and use Facebook to establish further relations.

 

Avoid these 6 points with your next email campaign to increase its effectiveness and greater the chances of success.

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Really useful tips on Email Marketing, I'd like to add on more thing here: Don't pick the wrong time to send! In the quest to get your users to open an email, the day and time that you send an email is incredibly important. 

1. Don’t Send Day-Of Emails.  while a large portion of your recipients are going to open your email the day that they receive it, not all of them will. As people visit their inboxes less frequently during the day and instead hit social networks, the number of days it takes between sending an email and a user reading it has grown. It used to be a commonly accepted metric that a marketing email or newsletters had a three day “open tail”. These days, most people allow up to five days for stragglers to open emails. 

2. What Time Is It? It’s not between 8:00am and 9:00am EST if you’re an email marketer! According to a Pivotal Veracity study, early morning email delivery has the lowest open rates. This makes sense since the first time most people check their email is when they arrive at work, and the common habit is to delete anything unimportant in order to reduce clutter before the day starts.

3. Monday Blues: Monday’s are considered the worst day to send mass email if open rate is important to you . The logic, again, involves the theory that most people spend most of their inbox time at work. When you come into work on a Monday, you instantly start deleting anything that seems like junk or unimportant email so that your inbox isn’t as overwhelming to you. 

4. Midweek is the Best Week: Most studies support that sending email on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday will yield the best results. So, if you boil it down, you want to send your email campaign on a midweek day in the afternoon.

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