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What’s better when reading about mistakes: the relief of knowing you’re not making them or the chance to get better at what you’re doing? Either way, these ten email marketing mistakes are common and pretty easy to fix without a whole marketing revamp. Find out what they are and if you could use some improving, find out what to do instead.
You know those emails you shoot off to your customers or prospects? The quick hellos, catch-ups, replies and follow-ups? Well, you’re marketing yourself when you do that, even if it doesn’t feel like it. So while you’re busy perfecting those email newsletters, did you ever stop to think that you might be sabotaging your marketing efforts by sounding unprofessional in regular emails? The small details matter! Here are some simple ways to clean up your image so that your emails reflect the true business person you are.
Writing an email newsletter is a challenge. Correction: writing a *good* email newsletter is a challenge. Many companies put together “the newsletter” as part of a marketing schedule but without really considering whether anyone is reading, clicking or caring. Here are some tips to keep your subscribers awake and engaged and to ensure that your efforts are not in vain.
Raise your hand if you’re engaged in email marketing. If you’ve been doing it for a while, are you sort of on autopilot? Write, post, send. And if you’re kind of new to the whole thing, are you a little unsure about how to get from, “I want to do email marketing” to, “Now that was a successful campaign!”? Whether it’s your first or 600th time sending out a marketing email there are things to think about before you do. So before you hit send and cross “do the email marketing” off your list, take a moment to ask yourself these important questions.
You need an email template if you plan to market with any efficiency. You don’t need to get stuck with only one email template forever, but trust me, you don’t want to recreate one every time you want to send an email. The easier it is for you to put together, the easier it’s going to be for your subscribers to read and understand. Here are some important things to know about email templates and a few things you can do to make yours an asset instead of a liability.
Even with all the hoopla around social marketing and engagement, for most small businesses email is where the real engagement happens. Believe it or not, all that “socializing” we do online is still not as effective when it comes to running a business, connecting with customers and making sales as the good old fashioned email. But too many businesses make the fatal mistake of training their list to ignore them. How? And even more importantly, how do you fix it? Here are some dangerous things to avoid and a few ways to combat brain dead zombie email readers.
Since email is where the action’s at – it has one of the best conversion rates by a long shot – then you want to capitalize on it and make sure you’re making the most of every opportunity. If you’re just getting started, or even if you’ve been doing it for a while and aren’t quite sure if you’re doing it “right” or whether your efforts are paying off, here are some tips to get you going in the right direction (again).
Wouldn’t it be terrible if the only thing standing between you and your customer is a poor choice of a few words? Poor subject lines can be ignored, or worse, end up in spam folders where they may never be seen. What if I told you that one of the simplest “quick fixes” to keep your email from being either ignored or filtered is to change your subject line? Bet you’d want to know how to do it! Here are some practical tips for writing a good subject line that will improve your open rates and keep your email out of the spam folder.
A little keyword research, SEO-style, led me to the conclusion that a whole lot of people out there aren’t even sure what email marketing is, let alone how to do it. So this article is a bit of an intro to email marketing, with a bunch of tips on how to plan your campaigns, and some advice for creating an effective email template. Whether you don’t know where to start or have a few campaigns under your belt and are looking for more details about best practices, you’ll find a good kick-start guide right here.
You may recall I published “The Biggest Marketing Mistake” a few days ago. No sooner had that article gone live than I had a conversation with a friend who conveyed interest in doing some email marketing. I offered to help but there were a few problems; namely, my friend didn’t have an email list. I almost regretted publishing the Biggest Marketing Mistake, thinking that this new infraction was truly the worst way to conduct business. So I’ve given the number 2 spot to this mistake: failing to build your email list at every opportunity. Find out more about why it matters and how to build your email list (the right way).
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