Are you Making these Common Email Marketing Mistakes?

Email marketing has extensive uses for your business, and when used properly, it can drastically increase conversion rates and boost your profits at a very low cost. However, because of the fast growth in popularity of email marketing, there are many misunderstandings about it. These common mistakes can lead to low profit and conversion rates – are you making any of them?

Sending emails too infrequently.
Many marketers do not want to annoy their subscribers and so they will send infrequent emails. However, from a marketing perspective, this is a terrible move. People receive a lot of email and if they are not reminded of you regularly, they will forget who you are, what your list offers, and what you can do for them, and unsubscribe to your list. The ideal frequency of sending emails will depend on your subscribers and how they react (different audiences react differently), and you should test several different frequencies to see which they respond to best. However, you should be sending at least one email a month, and preferably 2-3 emails a month to keep your brand and offerings fresh in your subscriber’s minds.

Sending emails irregularly.
People like regularity – they like to know that twice a week on Mondays and Fridays, you will send them an email. If people do not know when to expect your next email, it will throw them off. If you send three emails one week and then one in the next two weeks, for no reason, subscribers will be confused.

Vague subject lines or “from” names.
Again, people receive a lot of email. If they cannot tell who the email is from or what it’s about with a quick glance at it, the email will likely be deleted without ever having been opened. Make sure to give your emails clear, enticing subject lines, and have the same “from” name every time.

Not making use of list subsections.
You can divide your email lists by location, age, date signed up, and interests they choose when they sign up, among other factors. Many email markets do not do this but you can use this information to send super-targeted offers to a very specific subset of your list. When you do this, it gives you a chance to write the email to such a small segment of your list that everyone who receives it will feel as though it was written for them. Targeted specific offers like this tend to have much higher conversion rates than offers sent to your entire list.

Adding old emails to a new list.
Even if someone signed up for one of your lists, to add their email to a different list without their explicit permission is a violation of the CAN-SPAM act. And after you are reported as spam a few times, which is likely to happen if you do this, your emails are much less likely to get through to the rest of your list. As a rule, do not put anyone on your list unless they have signed up through your opt-in forms or specifically request that you add them to your list.

To see some examples of CFL's Email marketing capabilities email: philm@cflmarketing.co.uk or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk