Email marketing. If we hear this word, many people may think that it is already an obsolete method in an infinite number of marketing tools. We are sure this thought ran through your brain, too.

However, this is not true, personalized queries are effective nowadays too, and databases of email addresses are of tremendous value. But what causes these messages to end up in the spam folder or trash? In the following, you can read about the 5 main mistakes in an email marketing campaign that are usually made. 

About e-mail marketing

You also have an email account, right? In this, your consumer base is no different. There are billions of active email accounts in the world, and you will be sure to find your target audience out of so many people.

We know that is not enough to convince you, so let us look at some data:

• There were 3.9 billion email users in 2019, which is expected to jump to 5 billion by 2025.
• People send and receive 300-350 billion emails per day.
• Are newsletters ineffective? No, the number of subscriptions increased by 35% from 2019 to 2020.
• The effectiveness of email marketing is proven by the fact that, according to statistics, a $ 1 investment yields an average return of $ 42.
• Email marketing increased the average conversion rate of businesses by 12% in 2019.

Did you think an email campaign would perform much better than any social media campaign? But that is the way it is. We hope this is enough to convince you that this marketing tool does work.

But then why is it built into the public consciousness that it is an unnecessary tool? The answer to this is that many people misuse it. They accumulate errors, and that is why they will not be able to achieve the desired success, the conversion rate will not increase. Let us see what you should not do, what considerations you need to consider if your goal is to increase your conversions.

Use relevant content

The first and arguably the biggest mistake is to send irrelevant data to your customers during your direct marketing campaign. Never make it.

To illustrate it with an example: Suppose, that you send a personal, special offer to one of your customers in the form of a coupon code. However, at the time of purchase, your potential buyer cannot use the coupon. 

This will definitely shake the confidence and this person may never buy from you again. You have lost a loyal customer, which is the biggest mistake in the life of a business since this is the segment that contributes the most to optimizing the conversion rate and increasing it.

Always send notifications about current offers and only if the promotion is already available in your webshop or your psychical store. Never send an email in advance as many people would buy right away and if they cannot do this, they may be distrustful of you, their opinion of you may change.

Negative visual experience

The user experience is important not only on your website but also in your direct marketing campaign. Many emails do not encourage people to buy because they are simply ignored or thought to be a scam.

Let your customers know that you sent this message and they see a real offer. You have several options for this:

• Display your logo and distinctive motifs. Based on this, your customers can identify you.

• The message does not be crowded, just focus on the point.

• Do not be afraid to use colors. Display the colors of your website in the message. However, make sure that these only appear in the background, the letters should never be colored, as this can be confusing for the reader.

Focus on optimizing your email for UX, this is a critical step because it can also depend on whether or not they visit your business.

The lack of a clear message

Many make the mistake of not focusing on the point. They want to provide too much information in the email which distracts from the point.

The soul of direct marketing campaigns is the straightforward form. What does this mean? 

Do not talk too much, just say as much as you have to. If you are sending a discount offer, indicate this in the address. Let the first few lines of the message be just that.

If you do not clarify with your customer at the outset why you are sending them an email, the message can easily be trashed. And you do not want that, do you?

Also, what you can still do is use the same CTAs as on your website. It is important to check these first, as not all CTAs can work the same way in an email and on a website.

A perfect way to do this is to run a heatmap analysis on your website. This will help you see which CTAs are performing well. This will allow you to make a final decision on the color of the button and the text of the call-to-action. By using this method, you will be able to boost your conversion rate with e-mail marketing as well.

Avoid long e-mails

As with social media, the use of long texts in email campaigns should be avoided. Who would want to read a litany? Probably no one.

Based on the statistics, we can say that an average person spends a maximum of 8-10 seconds reading a post or promotion. You have so much time to convince or to give the information.

If you want your direct marketing campaign to increase conversion rate as well, strive for short texts. Summarize the message of the e-mail in 1-2 sentences and then use only words.

If you still have something to say, add pictograms or emojis to the text. This will make the whole text bolder and easier to read, which will increase the activity on your site by a large percentage.

Personalization is key

Birthday promotions, personalized offers, all of which contribute to the development of a personal relationship between you and your customers. This is a mandatory step in email marketing.

Unfortunately, experience shows that many businesses still leave this step. Why is this wrong? Because that way you have a much lower chance of having loyal customers, and without loyal customers, your conversion rate can easily be halved.

Create a registration interface on your website that will let you know what the name of that particular customer is. From now on, you can easily send named emails to your specific customer. Believe us they will appreciate it.

Also, keep track of what products your customers have bought from you and send discounts based on that. They are going to think “this page is really knowing what I need”. And you really know, trust is already in the building step.

Conclusion

As you can see, email marketing is by no means as ineffective as everybody say. You have many options to use this tool effectively.

Remember, it is all based on a database, so you need to deal with that first. Once you have that, you can prepare for optimization. Pay attention to textual content, personal tone, and design because it is key for an increased conversion rate.

If you follow the steps above, you will be able to create a successful direct marketing campaign.

We hope we can help.