Have you been struggling to convert your subscribers into loyal customers? You may think your job is done after you have gotten several email subscribers. But your job is just beginning. In this post, we will share some of the top email marketing mistakes marketers, bloggers, and even professionals make that ruin email conversion.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing uses commercial email as part of your marketing strategy to spread awareness about the products and/or services of a company or brand. It is a highly effective digital marketing tactic that informs audiences on your email list about new products, services, discounts, and special offers.
Email marketing mistakes to avoid in 2021
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Lacking a clear call to action
The number one objective of email marketing campaigns is to get the audience to take action and buy your products and/or services. A clear and effective CTA centers on the reader, not the product. Hence, you should construct calls to action that focus on the needs of your readers. A good call to action should be clear, captivating, and straight to the point. Without creating a clear call to action, you are asking your audience to decide what they want to do afterward without any guidance.
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Poor subject lines
Everyone receives a whole lot of emails. Consequently, most users just scan the subject line of each email for about microseconds before executing a bulk deletion of “uninteresting” sales offers. A well-crafted, enticing subject line can be a very big game-changer in your email marketing campaigns. Subject lines that effectively prompt the audience to open emails possess these characteristics:
- Offer value
- Brief, catchy, and to the point
- Professional sounding, not sensational
- Customized or personalized to the reader
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Unmet audience expectations
Here’s the truth: your readers will unsubscribe from your email list if your emails do not meet their expectations. And if you allow this to happen, even the best email content on the planet would be irrelevant. Your brilliantly crafted words, your quality product, and your enticing calls to action will no longer be seen since your emails will not be sent to their inboxes anymore.
You are probably wondering: how can I fail to meet my reader’s expectations? The number one way is email frequency. For instance, if you promised to email your audience monthly, but you’re emailing multiple times a month, then you’re failing to meet your reader’s expectations. In the same way, you’re not meeting readers’ expectations if they expect to hear from you more often but you only email every once in a while.
Going off-topic is also another way by which you can fail to meet your readers’ expectations. So if your audience were expecting parenting tips at the time of subscription, be sure to send them emails revolving around parenting.
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Bombarding readers with graphics and stock photos
Most users today have computers that can load image-heavy content in no time, however, designing your campaign around only graphics will alienate your audience and make the correspondence look meaningless.
Indeed, the right use of highlighted sales graphics and charts can boost conversion rates. Nonetheless, treat them as the spices you use to garnish the main dish of premium-quality content. Just a little can be sufficient, and too much of it ruins the whole meal.
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Ignoring mobile users
One report notes that virtually all Americans now own cellphones, and about 77% use smart devices every day. Neglecting to design your email campaigns to load efficiently in mobile device windows can cause you to lose a good percentage of customers and revenue.
It is better to always beta test your email campaigns across different devices in order to avoid load time and quality issues. Although no one can necessarily determine issues such as load time, it’s still better to optimize your email marketing strategy for mobile-friendliness.
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Not utilizing message previews
The majority of email programs have previews that provide the readers with a brief introduction to the topics discussed in the correspondence. You can consider the email preview more like the lead in a news story: the audience wants to be sure that the remaining part of the content will be worth the read. Hence, reviews are important as they let prospective users determine whether they want to read your content further or not.
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Not measuring campaigns
It is necessary to incorporate tracking programs in your email campaigns so as to determine what messages drive prospective customers to make positive decisions and which ones are sent directly to their computerized trash folder. Don’t hesitate to create a tracking system to continually enhance marketing measures and boost conversion rates.
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Waiting until you have ‘enough’ subscribers to start
Finally, this is one of the biggest email marketing mistakes you can ever make with email marketing. Never put off sending a new form of an email campaign because you feel you don’t have “enough” subscribers yet. We understand you want to have as many subscribers as possible signed up on your list, but if you continue to wait for some miraculous volume of subscribers, your contacts will forget to then sign up in the first place.
At the end of the day, this can cause reduced engagement when you eventually send out the emails because your audience won’t be expecting to get messages from you. We, therefore, advise that you concentrate on committing to your current number of subscribers and providing them the content they want to read.
Conclusion
Are you ready to boost email conversions? You should understand that conversions don’t end just because you already have the email address of a user. Now that you know the most common email marketing mistakes to avoid making in 2021, your brand will have the edge over competitors.
