5 Email Marketing Mistakes To Avoid
Email has been around a long time. I always think way back to the days of AOL and getting so excited to hear the old “You’ve got mail”
The novelty shortly wore off a little and people started to ignore the vast majority of emails that began to bombard their inbox. Email marketing started to become passé and along the way you may have even heard that email marketing was dead. Maybe before you even got a chance to really use or understand the power of email for your business.
Well, guess what? It ISN’T dead… not even close. Those who think email marketing is dead simply just do not know how to use it well.
Questions such as:
- How often should you send emails?
- What should I say in those emails
- How do I collect emails other than online orders
- Should I put pictures inside the email
The top mistakes to avoid when getting started with email marketing.
These are common mistakes that almost everyone thinking about starting an email marketing campaign makes. If you find yourself doing any of these, stop and use this article to implement a great email marketing strategy.
Let’s get into it…
#1 Not collecting emails from everyone that visits your website
I see this in most restaurant websites. There is no offering on the homepage for your customers to opt into. Why wouldn’t you ask anyone who visits your website to input their email in exchange for a gift? They obviously went to your website for a reason, give them an opportunity to give you their email. If you don’t, you’ll be missing out of one of the best ways to grow your target list.
Offer a discount or a free item in exchange for their email address. It could be something like a weekly give- away to a $$ amount off their next order. Think of something you could start offering and get started converting those visitors into emails!
#2 Not sending emails when people subscribe to your list.
This is something that I talk about with our clients all the time. They get so overwhelmed by the thought of not knowing what to say that they never say/send anything.
Someone who signs up for your email wants to hear from you. However consumers have short attention spans…if they don’t hear from you, they quickly forget you.
It’s as if someone calling your restaurant only you not answering the phone! Then calling them back two weeks later saying “hey we are ready to take your order now”
YOU BLEW IT!
They forgot that they even called you and now you look stupid.
#3 Asking for too much inside each email
You have so much to say you try and ask for 5 or 6 things inside your email. This will only overwhelm your customer and therefore they will take no action at all.
When sending your emails ask for one thing. If you really have to ask for two make the second one in the P.S.
When we consume emails we are programmed to look at the Headline (why we opened) then we scan the email (why bullet points or bold headlines are great) lastly we read the p.s.
If those grab our attention then we’ll read the rest. If it doesn’t, you’ll get deleted and disappear forever.
#4 Bad formatting: Not easy to consume on a mobile device.
Like I said in #3 we scan and if it looks good then we read. Set bullet points and big fonts (15 font) Most of your emails will get read on mobile so before you send it as a broadcast send a test email to yourself and read it on your phone.
If it looks good and it’s easy to read, your click through rate will dramatically increase.
Not only that but when you send a future email they will remember that yours are easy to read and they’ll get opened.
#5 Being Boring
Too many people write emails that they want to send, not that people want to read. Reverse engineer the process and put yourself inside the shoes of the reader. Would you really care about what you’re sending?
Is it entertaining in the least or are you just saying how great you are or trying to sell a product always?
It’s not always about selling in the email, tell stories, be worth reading if you are then the sale will come in time. We’ll talk about that more in the next series.
Thanks For Listening
Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode. I hope that you have found it to be valuable. If you have a question or comment you can email at Bruce@smartpizzamarketing.com
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