Building email campaigns from scratch might seem like a simple process, right? Think of an idea, build the email, hit send, gain a ton of business… Not quite. We are going to explore a few common mistakes people make when building email campaigns, learn how to avoid them, and explore tactics that can be utilized to increase email success. The most common mistakes are listed below:
Your email looks great on desktop, but it’s not mobile compatible
This is a very common mistake for people who are new to building their own email campaigns. The reason this is easy to overlook is because emails are generally built on desktops and it’s easy to forget that you need to view the email on multiple screen sizes to see how it scales.
A lot of email service providers (ESPs), such as Sendgrid or Mailchimp, have a “view as mobile” option in the email creator. Make sure to check this anytime you make a change to your email to ensure it’s still working on mobile devices. If the ESP you’re using to create emails doesn’t have this as an option, you can test mobile compatibility by sending a test email to a personal or business email address you have on your phone. If the email loads properly on your phone, then it is mobile compatible for almost all devices. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but you can feel generally confident that it’s working.
Overselling a product or service
People think of email campaigns as an additional avenue to sell a product or run promotions, which is true, but that isn’t the only thing you can use email for. Only running product promotions and sales campaigns can get exhausting for your leads. They don’t constantly want to be hearing about your newest promotion, or what your product can do for them.
A good rule of thumb is to make sure you sprinkle in some insightful or helpful content that your leads might actually find useful without having to buy a product. For example:
Week 1: Send out a blog email on a topic that you think is helpful
Week 2: Send out a promotion tying that blog into your product
Week 3: Send another follow-up referencing the blog with a call to action about your product
Just because you are sending an informational email doesn’t mean you won’t get new leads or sales. Properly placed CTAs can go a long way. Keep your emails diverse and think of what you would want to see in an email before you send it.
Using poorly worded subject lines and preview text
Subject lines and preview fields are the foundation of any email campaign. They can either make you or break you. Subject lines and preview fields are important for a few reasons. This is the first thing your leads will see other than your company name. They give a brief snippet of what to expect before actually clicking the email. We want this to be catchy, unique, and fun enough to generate a click. Writing a subject line is kind of like walking a tight-rope. It takes a lot of practice to figure out exactly which kind of subject lines are most successful for your audience, but once you do it’s a great feeling.
Here are some examples of bad subject lines:
- New product promotion
- Save time and money
- Re: New product promotion
Here are some examples of good subject lines:
- Top 10 Email Tips and Tricks 🔟
- Hey [First Name], did you see this? 👀
- Final hours! Will you save 25%?
Can you see the difference? Once you have your subject lines figured out, you need to make sure the preview text of your email is displaying correctly. This is usually a snippet of text that gives a brief overview of what your leads can expect inside the email. This is arguably just as important as the subject line. You need to make sure your preview text is displaying correctly and that it accurately displays your most intriguing points within the email. You don’t want a good subject line and your preview text to say “View online”, that just feels bad. Overall, keep practicing and A/B testing subject lines and figure out what your audience likes the best.
Better emails, better content, more success
Overall, the general theme is make sure your emails are compatible, the content is good, you provide variety, and you’re creative. Make every email unique and put full effort into providing your leads intriguing and interesting email content. If you would like to explore and learn more about how Squatch Marketing can help you achieve these things, request a consultation. If you do, we can provide you a free email mock-up for your business and discuss your email marketing needs.