5 Common Email List Mistakes To Avoid
1-Purchasing email lists as opposed to building them
The thought of buying an email list may
have occurred to most. You may think that this is a great way to get your Email Marketing game in the fast lane and quick. After all, email marketing is the best way to sell just about anything online.
You come across as a spammer and could land yourself in the soup with your email service provider.
A ridiculously low open rate; healthy, targeted lists have an average open rate of 20-25%. With a bought email list, it far, far lower, if any at all.
You risk damaging your reputation, and online reputation is extremely crucial for your business.
Your newly attained email list will have incomplete or out-of-date data. Illegally harvested email address (against the CAN-SPAM Act) could cost you a fair penny (penalties up to $16,000 for each email address sent)
In a nutshell, buying an email list is just not worth the hassle, time and more importantly, money – just do it right, by the sweat of your brow way.
2-Missing or poorly-placed opt-in forms
Opt-in forms are when you basically give a potential consumer the option to become a subscriber to emails from you. It’s a great way to grow your email list and expand your email Marketing Database.
You should make it a point to give your customer this option be in on your blog, webpage or any other form of online display advertising that you’ve invested in.
It has been found that about 78% of sites make this real easy for a customer to sign-up, but what about the other 28%?
Once a customer has opted to join your email list, make it a point to have a not-so-generic welcome mail as you are still fresh in the minds of that customer. Quite a few businesses fail to do so.
If your customer has made the effort to
subscribe, then they really want to
benefit from content that you have
to offer and such customers should
always be valued.
Some sites have made it a task where the user has to hunt for a registration form, ultimately leading to the customer abandoning the idea entirely
A double opt-in option to be part of an email list keeps your increases your subscriber’s engagement.
A double opt-in customer is less likely to report your mailers as spam and in some countries, it is the norm to prove legal compliance.
3-Sending emails about topics that aren’t relevant or personalized to your targeted audience
If you send out a generic email to all the subscribers on your email marketing list
you stand the chance of generating a higher rate of consumers on your email list either opting or tuning-out to your content.
69% of email recipients report mail as spam based solely on the subject line.
62% of consumers open an email due to a personalized subject line. (Campaign Monitor)
According to one of the most recent surveys done, a whopping 54% of consumers end their relationship with a brand or marketer if the content received is not personalized
IP addresses appearing on just one of the 12 major blacklists had targeted email marketing deliverability 25 points below those not listed on any blacklists.
By using a specific personal name, as opposed to a company’s name or a generic email account, open and click-through rates can be increased by as much as 35%. (SuperOffice)
Personalized subject lines lift open email rates by 29.3%. (MarketingSherpa)
Personalized emails will receive 6 times greater a response or transactional rate. (Experian)
Giving your email subject and body a personalized touch tends to have a greater response from subscribers of your email list. Really, who wouldn’t appreciate that?
So, it makes sense for you to make things personal with regard to those individuals you wish to target as part of your email marketing strategy.
4-Email that isn’t optimized for mobile devices
We live in a digital age, where most individuals have access to the internet and their email via mobile devices as opposed to, say a desktop. So, it makes sense to have your emails tailored or optimized for mobile devices as well right?
Not doing so, diminishes the efforts of online display advertising that you probably would have invested heavily in for your business. Basically, why not have your cake and eat it?
35% of business professionals check their emails using mobile devices.
Emails not optimized for mobile devices get deleted by a majority (80.3%) of users. (eMailmonday)
Essentially, you lose out on a large
database of email list subscribers if the
content you wish to share with them is not
optimized for their mobile devices.
3 out of 10 users unsubscribe from an email list if emails are not optimized for mobile devices. (Bluehornet)
Mobile email will account for 20-75% of email opens, depending on the targeted audience, product, and email audience. (eMailmonday
5-Non-segmented email marketing campaigns Vs. segmented campaigns
If you have a multitude of different types of subscribers on your mail list, it would behoove you to have your email marketing content segmented.
This way you target your subscribers in a more personalized manner based on factors like geographical location, interests, personal history, etc.
Mail open rates are 14.31% higher than non-segmented marketing campaigns
Bounce rate is 4.65% lower than non-segmented marketing campaigns
Unsub rates are 9.37% lower than non-segmented marketing campaigns
Unique open rates are 10.64% higher than non-segmented marketing campaigns
Click rates are 100.95% high than non-segmented marketing campaigns
ReachStream
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