It’s human nature to make the odd mistake. However, there are mistakes which we
simply cannot afford to make. The kind that has huge consequences. Doctors can’t
afford to misdiagnose patient’s illnesses and surgeons make critical decisions
that don’t allow for the slightest mistake because it could cost a patients
life. As for government officials and presidents their mistakes have a vast
affect on the futures of the countries they rule. In the same way making
mistakes when developing an email marketing campaign can cause you to not only
lose money but perhaps wreck your brand image. The least you can do is to be
wary of the mistakes that can be made.
Better the devil you know
than the one you don't know… Although making mistakes is part
of the learning process, a well planned marketing campaign can serve you well in
the long run. Nearly all marketers new or experienced have made a mistake or
two. You have a chance to learn from their mistakes.
1. Seek
permission first Before investing your time and money ensure
that you have permission from every single one of your recipients. Permission
means people requested email marketing from you. It's easier than you think.
It’ll result in fewer spam complaints, better deliverability, and decreased
legal liability and most importantly better click results.
2.
Know the difference There’s a distinct difference between
transactional emails and email Marketing. If a list of customers has purchased
products from your e-commerce store they'll be expecting email receipts and
email shipping notifications. These are transactional emails. Transactional
emails should be sent from your own server. Email newsletters, coupons and
promotions are marketing or commercial emails. If you send a commercial email to
a list of people without their permission it’s called an unsolicited commercial
email (UCE)" otherwise known as spam.
3. Do not rush
The biggest mistakes occur when marketers insist to have their
campaigns done ASAP! Usually Designers end up not doing proper design and coding
and not much thought is given to the content. Subject lines aren’t thought
through (this is considered one of the most important factors in your open
rate).10%-30% of recipients click on the "this is junk" button in their email
program which causes alerts to get sent out to their ISPs which in turn
blacklists the sender for spamming. Email marketing requires a good amount of
planning, testing and measuring.
4. Assumptions
After creating appealing email signup forms, marketers start
sending emails. Even though they responsibly acquired every recipient's
permission before sending the emails, those recipients forgot to sign up. So
when suddenly an email newsletter pops up from out of the blue, they report the
sender for spamming. This scenario happens often. A lot of email experts say
that permission goes stale after only 6 months. If you're not regularly
contacting your list assume that the old emails have already forgotten you.
Bright idea? Send them a "remember me?" email every so often.
5.
Purchasing email lists Try not to buy a totally legitimate list
of 30 million opt-in emails via some sketchy piece of spam. In this case you
should judge a book by its cover. If it looks suspicious it probably is.
Although there are still some vendors out there who are selling opt-in lists the
old fashioned way. They collect email addresses and ask members if they'd like
to receive special offers from 3rd parties. Then they just sell those email
addresses to other people. Technically this is not legal. The correct way to do
it is to keep the list and then send special offers on behalf of 3rd parties. Be
wary of any groups that'll just give you a big list of emails. They should be
doing the delivery for you so that their recipients will recognise the sender
and so that you won't get reported for spamming.
6. Double-Check
Always double-checking the list before sending to it. This
mostly applies to agencies sending on behalf of their clients. Some people send
email marketing campaigns to lists that are obviously not permission-based.
You're breaking the terms of use and the CAN-SPAM law when you do that. You can
be held liable for spam when sending on behalf of someone else. Ask them how
they got the list and if it's permission based or not.
7. Test.
Test and Test You should test your campaign in various email
programs. HTML emails look different depending on which email program you use to
view it. Just because it looks good in the preview window or when you send a
test to yourself it doesn't mean it'll look like that for all your recipients.
You need to setup a few accounts with free email services like Yahoo!, MSN,
Hotmail, and Gmail. Setup home accounts with AOL, Earthlink, Comcast, and
Roadrunner. Test on different computers and operating systems like Macs and PCs.
If you don't have the budget to build test computers just enlist a few
volunteers at the office or family and friends. Send them tests and ask if they
can tell you if the email looked weird in their programs.
8.
Image is key Don't send a big email campaign to your customers
and use your "@yahoo.com" or "@aol.com" home email address. Instead use your
website's domain. You should already have email accounts setup under that
domain. Some people like setting up an additional "newsletter@companydomain.com"
address for their emails.
Some marketers send dozens of campaigns but
they never continually review their reports. As a result they don't notice when
their list is very steadily shrinking. See if you can improve your open rates,
click rates and conversions on a continual basis. Being aware of possible
mistakes is better than trying to rectify a balls’ up. Surely, the effort will
be worth your while.
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email
address lists that will reach your target audience?
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