Make Sense of Email Marketing: What to Do and 7 Pitfalls to Avoid

Is email marketing the right fit for your business? Well, the short answer is “yes, probably.” According to Campaign Monitor, 64% of small businesses use email marketing, with predicted ROIs in excess of 3500%. In this article, we’ll explore the ins and outs and the dos and don’ts of email marketing.

How do you know if email marketing will work for your business?

Thankfully, a sound strategy and well-researched campaign will set you up for success. With over 4 billion daily email users, email marketing is one of the most versatile marketing channels and one of the most scalable. Starting small is relatively straightforward, and you might be surprised by how quickly you can expect to see results.

It all starts with a sound email marketing strategy

Every good email marketing campaign begins with a strategy, and this strategy can change significantly depending on your objectives. Email marketing can help you achieve your goals in several ways, including keeping sales contacts warm, rewarding existing customers with offers, or pulling in new leads entirely. Depending on your objective, the number, frequency and content of emails will vary.

Building your email lists

Before you can send any emails, you’ll need some email addresses to receive them. There are numerous ways to build an email list: opt-in forms, contests, giveaways, customer feedback surveys and referral programmes are a handful of options.

You can also buy email lists, it's important to be careful here though, as you don’t always know what you are paying for or how GDPR-compliant the data is. We recommend sticking to building your own lists through your marketing activities or sales team.

Creating content - generic vs personalised

We’ve all had the misfortune of generic or irrelevant emails cluttering our inbox. Taking the time to learn about your audience segments as well as personalising your content and outreach will help you stand out.

The key to great email content is often the copy and the visual design. If you are selling a professional service, for example, the main body of the email may signal to your audience to contact you. However, if you sell consumer goods, creating an email that complements the look and feel of your product may take priority. No matter the email, there are two fundamental areas that every email marketing campaign absolutely must get right: the subject line and the call-to-action (CTA).

What does successful email marketing look like?

Measuring the performance of any campaign can be challenging if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Email marketing, however, is one of the easier platforms when it comes to tracking success, especially when using an email marketing platform. There are a whole host of metrics out there you can use to monitor your campaign. Let’s go through a handful of the key ones:

• Open Rate - the percentage of recipients who open your email. A strong open rate is a marker of a well-segmented email list with a good subject line.

• Bounce Rate - the percentage of emails not delivered to recipients' inboxes. High bounce rates can be a result of issues with your email list or something more technical.

• Click-Through Rate (CTR) - the percentage of recipients who clicked a link in your email. Compelling content and a well-targeted campaign make all the difference here.

• Unsubscribe Rate - this one is pretty self-explanatory. A high unsubscribe rate is indicative of poor segmentation and/or content with limited value.

Not only will tracking these metrics help you optimise your email marketing campaign over time, but you can also use A/B testing to speed up the process by testing our subject lines, content and even structure.

Email marketing sounds great, but what’s the catch?

As straightforward as email marketing can be, a lack of strategy and poor execution can lead to your campaign falling flat. Some of the biggest pitfalls of email marketing are:

• Not cleaning email lists—yes, it’s tedious, but if you want to optimise your open and bounce rates, list cleaning is a must!

• Not segmenting your audience - sending the same email to everyone simply won’t work. You will either dilute your message or alienate half your audience.

• Bad email deliverability - there are a whole host of reasons why your target might not receive your email into their inbox; the email wasn’t verifiable, your IP address is blacklisted, spam filters send your email to junk etc. Make sure you verify your email and keep those open rates high.

• A weak subject line - “Urgent!” “Don’t miss out!” “Just checking in!” “Got a minute?” We’ve all seen them, yet we’ve never clicked on them. Don’t be afraid to test your headings to see what works for your audiences.

• Content overload - less is more. Sometimes 125 words and 2 pictures is all you need. Don’t cram things in just because you can - think about the audience, your objectives and the purpose of the email.

• A poor CTA - an enticing subject line and value-driven content are all well and good, but if you can’t land with a strong CTA, you’ll undermine your outreach entirely. Just like your subject line, test your CTA to see what resonates.

• GDPR - it's easy to overlook, but you could land yourself in some serious trouble with hefty fines and more. Understanding the laws around data protection is essential to email marketing and managing audiences.

A key component of any marketing strategy

Email marketing is versatile, scalable, measurable, and reliable. It's a fantastic tool for any business looking to generate leads, engage with customers, and drive sales. It sounds like the perfect tool to engage your market. However, there are plenty of traps to fall into, and some of the more technical aspects of email marketing can take a long time to understand.

That’s why email marketing is one of our key services. With years of experience, we save our clients the headache of learning everything there is to know about email. Not only that, but our in-house copywriters and designers can create compelling content to boost those click-through rates. Contact us to talk through what results email marketing could generate for your business.