Email Marketing, Part 3: 5 Mistakes to Avoid

In this final part of our email marketing series, we’ll explore the mistakes to avoid in your email campaigns. These include mistakes of over-simplification and under-utilization of your CRM capabilities. Let’s take a look:

Key emarketing mistakes to avoid this holiday season and into your 2019 campaign:

1. While email segmentation has been a marketing drumbeat for at least a decade, 89% of marketers still do not segment their email! They tend to send all emails to everyone on the list. Be sure you are segmenting your list so you can personalize your email beyond simply “Dear {first name}.” Track what makes them open or click, and that will tell you more about what they like and dislike. All of these factors can be easily captured in your CRM. Then use that knowledge to segment and treat them accordingly.
2. Writing too much is a major error in email communication (that goes for your personal email as well!). Stating your offer clearly and succinctly is an art form, and its importance can’t be overstated. Too much copy often serves to confuse your customer. Be brief and clearly highlight the most important parts of your offer – what, when, how much.
3. Offering too much is a variation on #2 – when you make multiple offers in a single email (this often happens with the ubiquitous newsletter), you’re again confusing customers. Offering too many options for action usually results in no action at all. If someone has to work too hard to figure out what you want them to do, they will give up and do nothing. If you do have a monthly or weekly newsletter, intersperse that with segmented, single-focus emails that contain a clear call to action.
4. An unopened email is an ineffective email. You must get people to open your email – and you do that in three distinct area: The “From” email address line, subject line, and pre-header. Let’s break those down:
   • From Email Address: If your email is sent from an admin@, info@, or some other generic email address, it will most likely be winnowed out by the receiving server and never reach its destination. The “from” email address should be someone recognizable to the recipient. 
   • Subject Line: The subject line is the most critical part of your email, and marketers often pay little attention to it. It is important to test different subject lines with different segments of your list to find what works. This is often called A/B testing where you sent nearly identical emails to different audiences, only changing one variable.  In this case the subject line.  Most emarketing systems include A/B capability – use it, it doesn’t cost you anything and it can substantially increase your ROI.  
   • Pre-header: Finally the pre-header – this is what shows up next to the subject line prior to opening the email – is essentially a way to expand your subject line and entice the recipient to open. This is another prime area for A/B testing.  
5. Use your CRM to follow up! For every action an email recipient takes, there should be a re-action in your email campaign. 
   • Open-click-purchase – great! Thank them and make sure you offer the next logical option. 
   • Open-click – this is also good news, follow up with more urgency, perhaps highlight a limited time special offer or bonus. 
   • Open – again, follow up and see if they open the next email but still take no action. If you have the type of product that justifies a personal follow up, your multiple opens and open-clicks are good candidates. 
   • What if they do nothing? Keep track of what does cause them to respond – if you find they only respond to freebies, or that, after several months, they respond to nothing, it’s time to scrub them out of your list.

An email-friendly CRM is an important part of your company’s marketing toolkit. If you are looking to build a robust, responsive customer base in a flexible and easy-to-use system, get in touch. We’re always excited to talk with you about how AspenTech CRM can meet your needs, just give us a call or jump onto my schedule to set up your complimentary Discovery Session.

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Related Articles:

Email Marketing, Part 1: Alive or Dead?
Email Marketing, Part 2: 5 Best Practices
Segmentation Defined