14 Email Marketing Mistakes

Nobody is perfect. In our personal and professional lives, we all make mistakes.
As email marketers we are not immune to mistakes. Below is a list of 14 email marketing mistakes.

Mistake #1
Purchasing an email list

Mistake #2
Sending an old email list

Mistake #3
Waiting until the last minute to send your email

Mistake #4
Sending emails with inconsistent branding

Mistake #5
Sending ugly looking emails

Mistake #6
Assuming permission

Mistake #7
Dumping email addresses from business cards onto your list

Mistake #8
Employing a “batch & blast” or “spray & pray” Strategy

Mistake #9
Not understanding “why” you are doing email marketing

Mistake #10
Sending emails sporadically (no consistency)

Mistake #11
Sending emails with boring non-unique content

Mistake #12
Sending an email with ONE BIG IMAGE

Mistake #13
Only sending an HTML versions of your emails

Mistake #14
Forgetting to design for multiple email clients and devices

I’ve been a big fan of CustomInk for several years. I designed and purchased a few t-shirts from them in 2005 and had such a wonderful experience that I remember it to this day. When they shipped the order, the receipt included a handwritten thank-you. I immediately signed up for their emails and was pleasantly surprised with their execution. Of course I had a few suggestions for improvement – but hey, that’s part of what I do.

Two Quick Questions

When the email below landed in my inbox on November 17th, I immediately opened it. Let’s break it down: Subject Line, Surveys, and Sara Stiefvater.

1. Subject Line: Two Quick Questions. It jumped out a me for a few reasons – brevity and catchiness. 3 words. A bit of alliteration. The use of a number. Coupled with the solid From Name (CustomInk), it stood out in my inbox as an email I could not only trust, but one in which I was curious to see the contents. A much more creative subject line then, “A Survey From XXXX.”

2. Surveys: In my opinion, surveys are tough. We’re all busy people. Conversion rates on surveys – sent through any medium – tend to be low (Note: I don’t have actual, hard figures on this. “Low” is based on personal experience). What I like about this email was that it was simple, short, and had a clear call to action…the link to “two quick questions.” They also thank me, include a promise, and used feel-good words such as valuable, improving, appreciate, and sharing. More below, but most importantly, it worked (I completed the survey)!

3. Sara Stiefvater: The email is signed by Sara Stiefvater. I have no idea who she is. The CEO? The VP of Marketing? A Support Rep? My personalized account manager? Besides having a cool last name, I’m not sure who Sara is. One could argue that this does not really matter, but as the email seemed so personal, a bit more about Sara would have been nice. I’ve seen some marketers include a signature image below there name. I’m 50/50 on this, but it may have been a nice touch in this case.

Did It Work?

I typically am a fan of a bit more then a rich-text email. I like to see some branding and/or a nice, relevant, eye-catching picture; however, in this case simple may have been better. I clicked on the link, took the survey, and even shared my thoughts on Twitter. So, the answer to “did it work” is a resounding yes. A simple, straightforward survey with a solid subject line signed by Sara Stiefvater (say that 10 times fast).

What Do Others Think?

When I tweeted about this CustomInk email survey, I was surprised by some of the responses (read conversation – hint: click “show conversation” in each tweet to get full story).

I’m not sure I agree with them, but they have some great points. The bottom line is this: Your emails resonate with different people at different times for often very different reasons. Continue to test – what works today may not work tomorrow. Test and tweak is the key.

What about you? Did you receive the same email survey from CustomInk? Did you click and complete the 2 question survey? Have you received other email surveys that impressed or disappointed you? Please share.

(I’d love to hear the results from CustomInk too!)

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
@djwaldow

Takeaway: Simple, clear and creative calls to action work.

I attended and spoke at the Online Marketing Summit (OMS) in Dallas. Aaron Kahlow and his team put on a multi-city tour every summer spending a day educating marketers about email marketing, SEO, social media, website optimization, and other hot topics in the world of online marketing.

Here are 9 hot takeaways from OMS Dallas!

Many folks are still struggling to understand how social media is different for B2B vs. B2C.

Dela Quist on the left

While there are certainly nuances of speaking with consumers vs. other business, the methods are the same for both. Social media is about being there before the sale, building credibility, and earning trust. I use this slide on the right of my colleague Dela Quist when explaining the difference (Note: I snapped this picture of a slide in Dela’s presentation during the Marketing Sherpa Summit in 2010).

Website secret #1: Communicate your message in less than 5 seconds. Jeffrey Eisenberg, Parnter at Eisenberg Brothers & Associates, provided 21 “secrets” for website optimization. (As it turns out, they were somewhat secret as Mr. Eisenberg informed us he would not be sharing his slides!) This was one of them.

This one, while maybe somewhat obvious, seems to be missed by many organizations. Take a look at a few websites, including your own. Literally, physically step back a few feet from your monitor. Can you tell what that company does? What action do they want you to take?

Jeffrey Eisenberg of Eisenberg Brothers & Associates

Website secret #2: Execute rapidly. Another one of the 21 secrets Jeffrey Eisenberg shared with attendees was to execute rapidly.

Part of any good website or blog (often one in the same) is the ability to be flexible. Information is flowing at a faster rate then ever before. Companies who can add/change content on their site quickly win. If you have a process that requires 17 steps to get new content approved and posted, you’re likely going to be too late.

Create a “Link to Us” Page: Make it easy for fans to link to you and be sure the code you provide is optimized for search. This tip was provided by Ray “Catfish” Comstock, Director of SEO at BusinessOnline.

One of the keys to SEO is inbound links. One of the challenges, however, is ensuring that when folks link to you they are using the keywords that you want. One way to helpyour own cause is to provide easy-to-use widgets and code snippets on your site. Ask folks who are linking to you to use them.

Ray Catfish Comstock of BusinessOnline

Use link building to show ROI in Social Media: While not all that straightforward to measure,  Ray “Catfish” Comstock, Director of SEO at BusinessOnline, suggested that your social media efforts (Tweet, Facebook post, LinkedIn Answer, etc) can ultimately lead to link juice. In other words, someone reads something you post to your social network. It gets picked up by another person who ultimately writes a complimentary blog post about your and/or your organization and links back to your site.

As mentioned above, this one is a bit tricky to measure, yet an important one. While somewhat of a manual process, I believe it’s important to tie back a positive, link-filled blog post to your social media efforts.

Engage customers at an intuitive, emotional level: Patrick Bultema, CEO of CodeBaby, was the lunch keynote who provided this tip.

Patrick Bultema of CodeBaby

Many buying decisions are made on emotion. This is especially true for lower cost, impulsive purchases; however, I’d argue that some folks drop big money based on emotion as well. If you believe that this is true, think about ways to appeal to consumers at the personal, emotional level.

Most successful marketers serve vs. sell: Joel Book of ExactTarget talked about how email marketing tied into social media, mobile, offline, and other channels.

Joel Book of ExactTarget

This is something that we preach often at Blue Sky Factory – “Be there before the sale.” The basic idea is that before you try and sell your product or service (your “stuff”) to a prospect, engage in a conversation – provide advice, coaching, insights, etc. The sale will come once a relationship forms and trust is earned.

Content production is a culture: Sean Jackson, CEO of Ecordia, was on the closing panel and talked a lot about content creation. His view was that all of these social media channels – Twitter, Facebook, email marketing, etc – will not serve you well if your organization does not have a culture of content production. Social media is just the vehicle to communicate this content.

Sean Jackson of Ecordia

Not sure I could have said it better!

Look to the adult entertainment industry if you want to learn how to do online marketing correctly.

This statement by Sean Jackson, CEO of Ecordia, certainly woke folks up at the end of the day.

Do you have a question for DJ or would you like to add a takeaway?
Drop a comment!

Every chance I get, I discuss the key to email marketing. It used to be to send timely, targeted, relevant emails to those who have asked. Recently (hat tip to Dela Quist), I’ve modified it to replace the word relevant with valuable. (Read more about value on the Blue Sky Factory blog.)

So, the new motto is: Send timely, targeted, valuable emails to those who have asked.

REI Understands Value

At the end of last year – December 29th to be exact – I received an email from REI. The subject line was simple enough: Your REI Events Calendar for January. Forgetting the timely and targeted portions for now, as well as the permission part (I definitely subscribed), let’s focus on the value portion. After all, that’s what really matters, right? Did I find value in the email that you just sent me? Breaking down the various forms of value.

REI Email (Top) - click to enlarge

REI Email (Bottom) - click to enlarge

1. Trust Value: This is all about the open. Did I value our relationship enough to trust you to open the email? In this case, the answer is: yes. I love REI. I love their emails. I love their store. I love their products. I love their employees. I love their community-focused approach. (Trust: +1).
2. Content Value: Was their personal value in the contents of the email? Was their enough in the message that got me excited about reading? How about clicking? Best yet, did I convert (buy something)? I definitely read and clicked. I didn’t buy but, part of that is because I’m not ready. Not yet, at least. (Content: +1).
3. Share Value: This one is where the digital glue (read more about social + email marketing) comes in. Was the email valuable enough to me that I wanted to share it with friends, family and random people (think: Twitter)? In this case, the answer was: no. But, that was mostly because I no longer live in Durham. More on that later. However, the content was great (see above). Had I still lived in Durham and been tied into REI, this email would have been share-worthy. (Share: +1/2).

So, if this had been a 3-star rating system based on Value, REI would have earned 2.5 stars. Not too shabby.

Bonus

There are a few other aspects of this email I’d like to acknowledge.

• While didn’t love the subject line (Your REI Events Calendar for January) as I prefer something with a bit more spice and character, it was definitely direct and to the point. I knew exactly what to expect. If they had included my preferred city, well…
• I think they did a pretty nice job with some of the social aspects. They called out “Find REI on…” in the bottom portion of the email. I could “find them” on the Big 3 – Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. However, why? What’s in it for me? Why friend or follow or subscribe to their various social channels?
• Finally, I loved (yes, loved) the “Interested in Events at a Different REI Store?” section. I’m not sure if this was personalized towards me or not, but it sure felt like it. As alluded to above, we moved from Durham to Salt Lake City in June of 2009. They provided me a nice button/link to update my preferences. Very smart. I often like seeing a totally separate “update your preferences” type campaign. Try it sometime. I dare you.

So, that’s the story on REI. I’m still a big fan. How about you?

Takeaway: As email marketers, we spend a ton of time thinking (and worrying) about best practices. I’m still a believer in following “generally accepted” best practices or “practices that are best for your company; however, at the end of the day, it’s all about value. Do your subscribers trust you? Is the content adding value to their day? Is it valuable enough to share? Value. Value. Value.

Image Credit: elventear

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory

Blue Sky Factory provides both full service and self service email marketing solutions to our global client base of over 600. Our leading web based platform, Publicaster, is currently in its seventh release, bringing the latest leading feature set to our clients browsers. The latest release offers enhanced deliverability solutions, detailed and customized reporting and analytics, and an easy to use intuitive user interface, all combined with leading customer service and support.