1. Using a generic subject line.
You know that your latest email campaign is the March Newsletter. And you know that it’s great. But it’s up to you to tell your customers just why March is so darn special. Consider using your subject line to tease your favorite article, a special, email-only offer or whatever *you* decide is the most enticing part of your newsletter.
Also, try including your brand in the subject line. It’ll let people instantly recognize *your* email at a glance and can help with inbox sorting down the road. Here are a few examples to get you started…
Average:
March Newsletter
Much better:
Main Street Gardens March News: Spring blooms are here, plus take 20% off all tools & equipment!
Average:
This Month’s Events
Much better:
Can’t-miss events at the County Fairgrounds: Roller Derby, a VIP-only concert, and much more…
Consider creating a series of emails that sends in succession, on the schedule you choose. Think of the content you’ve got that fits nicely in a short, regular format, and turn it into a whole welcome pack. Boutique, salon and spa owners might try a series of weekly style tips, while non-profits and schools might consider a group of campaigns showcasing their best case studies or student success stories. Whatever you choose for your welcome messages, you’ll be building trust with your recipients from the start, making them more likely to look forward to your messages down the road.
2. Getting freaky with Comic Sans.
Keep your campaigns easy on the eyes with simple, intentional style choices. Avoid switching fonts every few lines, and choose your colors with an eye for readability. After all, a well formatted campaign will catch your readers’ attention and make it easy to keep reading. And isn’t that the whole idea?
3. Sending email to people who didn’t ask for it.
While it’s important to make sure your email looks great, a successful campaign really starts with a solid, permission-based list. Stay in line with our permission policy, and only email people who have asked to receive your updates, bought something from you in the last 18 months or are directly affiliated with your organization. If it’s a rented list, a purchased list or a list of people who’ve never heard of you, avoid it. Like the plague.
Also to be avoided is taking that stack of business cards you collected at recent networking events and adding those people to your email list. Someone handing you their business card does not automatically give you permission. If when you asked for their card you also asked if you could send them your newsletter (or special offers, etc.) and they said yes, then you have their permission. And only then. Otherwise you need to follow up with them and ask if you may included them on your list or invite them to subscribe. Remember, emailing only to people that have given you permission will help you keep in line with best practices and help your business’ reputation.
4. Using an invalid reply-to address.
Since permission-based email marketing is all about staying in touch with your members and customers, giving your recipients a way to continue the conversation is a must. Otherwise, you’ll miss the follow-up questions from your customers, not to mention those rare (but important!) unsubscribe requests from people who choose to reply to you instead of using the built-in opt out link.
If the From Address you’re currently using doesn’t exist, consider asking your email administrator to create it, or change it to an address that does exist and is monitored by someone who can manage the replies.
5. Ignoring those results.
After all the work of the big send-off, don’t forget the fun of watching the results roll in. They’ll tell you a lot about what your audience is interested in. Have an overwhelming click-through response last month when you linked to your blog? Consider adding more links like that in this issue. Did 62 people click to learn more about your latest product? Sounds like follow-up phone calls might be in order. Make sure you learn from the way people respond, and apply those lessons toward even greater success next time.
6. Sending one big image.
It’s tempting to take that gorgeous flyer your designer created for print, save it as a jpg and plug it into your email campaign. But sending one big image is risky. Servers are more likely to filter emails with large images, and recipients may move on to other things before your image fully loads. And some email programs, like Gmail and Outlook, block images by default, meaning that a percentage of your recipients might see the original email you designed as a big, broken image. Yikes.
So, what is the best way to repurpose a print piece in email? Consider asking your HTML designer to take the single large image and recode it into smaller, sliced images.
7. Forgetting to test.
By taking a few minutes to send a test to yourself and a few colleagues, you can have peace of mind that your links work, your copy is typo-free and everything looks just the way you thought it would – all before you hit send to the big list.
8. Writing – and sending – a novel.
In this case, a novel is a really, really, really long email. When you send a campaign that goes on and on (and on), a typical subscriber – with a typically short attention span – probably won’t sift through lots of text to find the content that interests them. Instead, your recipients may delete your email at a glance or even file your email in the dreaded “to read later” folder.
Consider teasing your news articles with a quick text blurb in your email newsletter, then use landing pages to link your subscribers to additional content hosted on your website. In addition to shortening the length of your campaign, you also get the benefit of seeing which articles people click through to read – and you’ll end up learning more about what your readers are interested in.
9. Sending too often (or not enough).
Finding your ideal frequency depends on a few factors, like what your organization does and who you send to. Just keep in mind that sending too frequently may annoy your readers and increase your opt out rate, but long lapses of silence may cause some readers to just plain forget about you. Aim for regular contact that keeps your brand and product in front of your readers, and make sure each send-off has a purpose. And in general, staying in front of your audience at least once a month but not more than a couple of times a week works well.
10. Neglecting to personalize.
Sometimes being one in a million isn’t such a good thing, and you certainly don’t want your readers to feel like they’re just one email address in a giant list. Use your email campaign to connect personally with your readers, but don’t just stop with a personal first name greeting (although that’s a great place to start). Look for other ways to extend a personal touch, whether it’s through sending targeted messages based on your readers’ zip codes or interests or keeping a friendly, personal tone as you write your content.