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Email marketing is the cornerstone of effective communication and engagement. But even if we harness its power to connect with audiences, the path is full of pitfalls that can undermine our efforts and annoy our subscribers. Recognizing the importance of learning from the experts, we reached out to our own team at Benchmark Email to share their insights and experiences.
Our specialists spend their days navigating the intricacies of email campaigns, analyzing trends and optimizing strategies to ensure our clients achieve unparalleled success. Using a wealth of insights gleaned from the front lines of email marketing, they've identified the most common mistakes marketers make – a mix of overlooked fundamentals and new challenges that can significantly impact your campaign's effectiveness.
Whether you're a seasoned marketer looking to refine your approach or a newbie looking to get started on the right track, this insider's guide promises invaluable insight to help you navigate the complex landscape of email. Find your way around marketing.
1. Forgetting to do a test before sending
Yuriko Yamamoto
Marketing, Advertising and Customer Success
“One of the most common mistakes is forgetting to test before sending emails. I often see things like typos in the subject line, forgetting to change the subject line from previous emails, forgetting to update customer information, or sending campaigns with unexpected design visuals.”
2. Lack of strategy
Allie Wolff
Vice President of Product Marketing
“Marketers are doing themselves a disservice if they don’t have a clearly defined strategy behind every email. Almost every brand and business uses email in their marketing strategy, which means the inbox becomes overwhelmingly crowded. Are you sending emails just to send them? Do your emails have a clearly defined goal and a call to action that aligns with your audience's interests? If you want your email to be an indispensable resource for your contacts, you need to build credibility and earn their trust by sending communications tailored to them.”
3. No balance between visuals and content
“When talking about common pitfalls in email marketing, one must mention the imbalance in image-to-text ratio in email content. We've found that many customers who are new to email marketing tend to fill their emails with images, which can cause ISPs to classify these emails as promotional content or spam, giving them the opportunity avoids ending up in the primary inbox. We recommend maintaining a 40:60 image-to-text ratio to ensure emails reach the primary inbox, thereby increasing the likelihood of them being opened and clicked.
On the other hand, people also make the mistake of making their email content too long. People usually decide whether to continue reading an email within about 10 seconds. If the email is too long, it can make people less likely to read it and distract them. We recommend limiting email content to three to four times the above-the-fold content. This can be achieved by outlining key messages and incorporating CTA links to direct readers to your website for the full content.”
4. Choosing the wrong email marketing software
“Often, marketers gravitate toward email marketing software that is more popular or well-known, overlooking the importance of evaluating their specific needs, strategies, and goals. This often results in a significant investment in a tool that does not meet their needs. It is crucial for marketers to conduct a thorough assessment and be honest about their needs. They should carefully consider the features and limitations of different tools to ensure perfect alignment with their marketing goals.”
5. Do the bare minimum
Erin Posey
Vice President of Customer Support and Success
“I think assuming that email marketing is as easy as mass emailing your entire list on a regular basis is the biggest mistake I see. To be successful with your email marketing efforts, it's important to communicate intelligently using tools like automations, personalization, variations of emails, CTAs, and the right ratio of text to images. These things are very important for engagement, and engagement plays an important role in where your future inbox ranks.”
6. Do not use existing content to promote campaigns
Natalie Slyman
Content Marketing Manager
“Content is fuel, not just for your marketing and sales efforts, but also for your email marketing efforts. Your email marketing should sell, but it should also provide education and resources that your audience can use. Too often, marketers neglect leveraging their existing content to drive their email efforts. This can include linking to this helpful content in campaigns, as well as using the more engaging and successful content to guide the direction of their campaigns. I recommend monitoring your blog content to see which blog posts get the most views. This should give you more insight into what type of resources your audience needs. Then use this information to create email sequences with similar content for further engagement.”
7. List maintenance is not carried out
Jessica Lunk
Growth marketing
“List management doesn’t always get the attention it needs. List management includes activities such as removing non-activated contacts, segmenting your list, updating contact information, and growing your list through landing pages, forms, and other tools. Moving contacts isn’t the most fun part of email marketing, but a little effort in this area can produce great results.”
8. Send emails from a free domain
Anna Blaser
Director of Email Deliverability
“Failing to practice good list hygiene and not sending from authenticated private domains are two of the biggest mistakes I see being made today. Domain authentication used to be a recommended best practice, but today it is no longer negotiable. With Gmail and Yahoo's new authentication requirements, marketers can no longer go without authentication and expect to make it to the inbox. Sending to engaged subscribers from a fully authenticated domain is the best formula for getting your message to the intended recipient.”
9. Become complacent
Michi Yamamoto
Email marketing consultant
“Because sending emails is a routine task, some people tend to stop learning the latest and greatest techniques. You may miss the chance to generate new ideas or important information, such as: B. Google and Yahoo's policy changes.
I recommend watching blog posts and seminars about the services you use and spending 30 minutes to an hour a month gathering information about email marketing. The Benchmark Email Blog is a great choice to stay up to date with industry changes and learning techniques.”
The path to email marketing mastery is as much about avoiding missteps as it is about adopting best practices. The insights shared by our experts at Benchmark Email highlight the nuanced challenges and opportunities inherent in every email campaign. From understanding your audience to maintaining impeccable timing, the key to success lies in the details.
Remember that the email marketing landscape is constantly evolving, and so are our strategies. By learning from these mistakes and continually striving for improvement, we can transform our email campaigns into powerful tools for engagement, connection, and growth.
Author Biography:
by Natalie Slyman
Content Marketing Manager
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