Your marketers are running email marketing campaigns. But are they doing it correctly??

Reaching countless customers and prospects across the world at the preferred time and date - That’s the power of email marketing!!  And that's precisely why it is found in the arsenal of every business. Every entrepreneur gets its marketing team together to build a list of prospects and/or customers, and run campaigns to get a slice of attention in their inbox.

But is the success rate 100%?  The answer is No. According to Marketing Statistics Forum, approximately 76% of marketers use ridiculously substandard email marketing practices. These practices mark the downfall of the email marketing campaign, no matter how compelling is the copy or how perfectly it is timed for release.

Does your business' email marketing campaigns suffer from downright shoddy practices?  Do not over think. Simply find your answer below. We have  outlined the five most critical bad email marketing habits. Read, analyze and kick them out of your email marketing practice, right now.

Mistake 1: emailing without permission

Met an interesting bunch of people at the conference? Add them to the email list. Had a brief discussion with a potential client in the airport? Include his name in the next email campaign list.

The easiest way to spoil an email marketing campaign is to send emails to a list of people who have not given the permission to do so.

And shockingly, most marketers commit this blunder. Its understandable that it's always tempting to email newsletters and company news to potential audience, but by all means this is a BAD practice that violates the ethics of email marketing.

8 out of 10 consumers do not welcome such emails and perceive it as SPAM.
 
Sending emails to a huge database is not the key to success. It is always quality over quantity. For successful email marketing, it is essential to run permission-based marketing that ensures 100% acceptance from the recipients.

Think yourself: Emailing to 100 subscribers who have agreed to receive your emails is better than emailing to 2000 people that are likely to mark your email as spam. Right?

Mistake 2: no email list segmentation

New Product Launch? End of Season Sale Discount? What's the usual practice? Create a compelling email copy and send it to everyone on the email list. But is this a good habit?
It could have been 10-15 years ago. But today things have radically changed. Email blasts are a thing of the past and what is required today is personalized data-driven marketing.  So whatever be the theme of the campaign – email list segmentation is the most essential task to do.

Doing this sincerely ensures that highly targeted and relevant information is only delivered to the subscribers; which automatically increases the chance of engagement levels. After all, consumers are always more inclined to engage with targeted messages than generic ones. Isn't it? Also email list segmentation produces lower unsubscribe rates and more sales.

While many experts present email list segmentation in a complicated manner, here are a few easy ways to segment the email list:

• Age
• Gender
• Income level
• Geographic area
• Industry
• Buying behavior
• Interests/hobbies
• Sales Stage.

Note: This is a complete list of segments found to be applicable for businesses at large. Categories can be added or removed from the list. Marketers just need to use this list as a reference point and frame the list of segments that are applicable for the business.

Mistake 3: flashy subject lines

''First impression is the last impression''. Thinking of this phrase, marketers greatly emphasize upon email message subject line. The objective (obviously) is to make it appealing and eye-grabbing. However, in the process of creating compelling subject lines, in 9 out of 10 cases, marketers use words/phrases that lie or mislead subscribers. These are tagged as flashy subject lines.

Flashy subject lines, although grab attention, are unsuccessful in engaging the recipient. That's because the email copy does not match with the subject line. In a few cases, the  email turns out to be all fluff and zero substance. In  both situations, subscribers get irritated and refuse to engage or in worst scenario even unsubscribe from receiving mails from the company in future.

Mistake 4: absence of data-driven decisions

Gone are the days when email campaigns would be based on assumptions and instinct. Running email campaign based on what we think might be right is a waste of time, money and effort. To extract the optimum ROI out of the campaign, it needs to be planned and executed  with data-based insights.
So instead of running email campaigns in a way that the counterparts do or because the neighbor has told to do so, marketers should take help of software applications that assist in analytics.

Standalone email marketing platforms are good but not always effective.

For instance, synchronizing them with the business process is a tough job. Also, with a separate email marketing system, team suffers from the hassle of handling multiple data repositories. They have to pull information from different sources to get a 360-degree data view.

Modern day CRM systems have all the bells-and-whistles to function as email marketing software.  Not only can marketers create and schedule emails to reach and engage potential customers but also utilize reports and real-time analytics to understand the performance of campaigns. For every email campaign they can track:

• Number of recipients
• Number of people who have opened the e-mail
• Number of people who have opted out
• Number of people who have clicked on the link
• Number of invalid e-mail id (if any).

Imagine the benefits of having all this information? Marketers can identify what's working and what's not and accordingly frame the upcoming campaigns.

Mistake 5: no unsubscribe option
 
NO matter how much we do not want it but the ethics and the law of email marketing makes it  compulsory to include an 'unsubscribe' option in the email body. In spite of this, many marketers refrain from including it.

Understand: It’s the law. It is compulsory to offer subscribers a way to 'unsubscribe'. Also contrary to popular opinion, having an 'unsubscribe' option does not increase the probability of opt-out.

In fact, surveys suggest that emails that carry 'unsubscribe' option are seen in a positive light by the recipients. They feel that the company is not forceful and acknowledges recipient’s opt-out request.
So now you know what are the common bad habits that should be avoided when sending emails. Are your marketers committing any of these? Can you think of more pointers to be added to the list? Share your comments below.