Six common email marketing mistakes--and how to fix them

Sometimes all you need to do to improve your email response and conversion rates is rectify one or two common errors. In its white paper “Discoveries and Opportunities: Six Fixes to Dramatically Boost Email Marketing Results”, solutions provider Silverpop offers several examples.

Mistake #1: Not offering a preference centre. A web-based subscription management page, the preference centre enables customers and prospects to specify and update how they want you to contact them. Options can include types of messages to receive, format of messages (HTML vs text, say), and frequency of contact. Be sure to place the link to your preference centre prominently in your emails and on your website, and send confirmation emails when subscribers make changes.

Mistake #2: Failure to manage expectations. If you don’t let subscribers know what to expect from your email marketing—the sort of content they’ll receive, the frequency of the messages—or if you fail to meet those expectations, your subscribers are more likely to opt out in disappointment. In addition to describing the content on your opt-in pages, detail your privacy policy. Once someone has opted in, immediately send a thank-you email that confirms the subscriber’s details. Then follow up “with a series of emails sent immediately after confirmation,” advises Silverpop. “Restate what the subscriber signed up for, invite that person back to your website, provide contact information, link to your privacy policy, and link to past content.”

Mistake #3: Mailing too frequently or too infrequently. Spikes in unsubscribes and spam complaints and corresponding declines in open and click-through rates are potential symptoms of overmailing. If you’re not sending messages at least once a month, according to Silverpop, you’re undermailing. Other than that, though, there are no hard-and-fast rules. “The right frequency is both unique to the recipient and directly driven by the relevance and value of the emails. ‘Batch and blast’ emails sent twice a week might be spam-complaint material for a subscriber, but twice-weekly emails based on preferences and behavioural data could be the perfect cadence.”

Mistake #4: Ignoring subscriber feedback. Assign at least one person to monitor all the inboxes associated with your email marketing, including a dedicated feedback address, and to respond accordingly. Make every effort to reply to messages within 24 hours, even if it’s just to let the sender know that you’re still researching his query. And monitor blogs, online forums, and the like to see what, if anything, people are saying about your email programme.

Mistake #5: Relying solely on process metrics to assess email performance. Delivery rates, open rates, bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, list churn, and other process metrics are important, of course. But you also need to track output metrics: revenue generated from a specific email programme or over a certain period of time, money saved by using email instead of more-costly means of communication, share of wallet, customer retention. “Overall, remember that your email program is designed to support your company’s business and revenue goals,” writes Silverpop. “Process metrics help you improve aspects of your email tactics, but output metrics are the only metrics that matter in the executive suite.”

Mistake #6: Getting the timing wrong. “Today only” promotions can be quite effective, but when you bear in mind that not everyone opens his email immediately upon receipt, they also have the potential to disappoint customers or fail to live up to sales expectations. If possible, give more than just a day’s notice, and specify the date and time (the “today” on which you send the message may not be the “today” on which a customer opens the message).  

Related articles:
* Analyse your way to better email response
* Easy email wins
* Seven tips for improving your email design