Whether you bite your nails, check your phone too much or crack your knuckles, everyone has a bad habit or two. Marketers are no exception and sometimes tend to pick up bad habits within their work. Whilst some of these habits are just slightly annoying others can have a negative effect on your business. Take a look at some of the most common habits to see if you’ve picked any of them up…
Sending unwanted emails
The first and most important rule that should NOT be ignored. No-one wants to see emails in their inbox that they haven’t agreed to receive. Not only is it annoying, it’s also going to become part of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) on the 25th May 2018.
GDPR is a new privacy law from the EU aiming to regulate privacy rules across Europe to make them more consistent throughout each country. There a quite a few changes that will need to be adhered to including ensuring and being able to prove users have opted in to receive your emails.
Not segmenting data
Are you still only sending bulk, blast emails? If so, you need to get with the times and sort out some segmentation! If a recipient is interested in relaxing beach holidays they’re not going to be particularly interested in activity based skiing holidays. The same as single female isn’t necessarily going to be interested in the latest men’s footwear. According to the DMA, 77% of ROI comes from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns so sending the same emails to your whole list could be having a negative impact on your ROI.
There are lots of ways you can segment your lists, some of them include:
- Gender
- Location
- Age
- Stage in lifecycle
- Industry
- Purchase habits
- Interests
- Hobbies
Not testing emails
Testing is of the most important stages when sending email marketing campaigns, not only does it avoid silly errors it can also highlight major issues. There are a few different levels when it comes to testing emails:
Standard testing and proofing
Before any campaign is sent it’s vital to carry out the necessary checks. This includes ensuring your email looks correct across multiple platforms, any spelling mistakes are spotted, all images are loading properly, checking links etc. You should be sending your emails to a group of people, maybe your office or team, as a fresh pair of eyes may notice things you haven’t spotted!
Split testing
Split testing is a fantastic way to compare different versions of an email to ascertain which one performs the best. These results can then be analysed to determine which version of the email to send to the rest of your subscribers.
Multivariate testing
Multivariate testing is similar to split testing however it’s much more in depth. It allows you to create a single email and specify the different variables you want to test, resulting in a winning combination for your final version.
Want to know more about the difference between split testing and multivariate testing?
Dismal design
With the average time spent reading an email at 11.1 seconds (Litmus Email Analytics) you need to capture your recipients attention quickly. This can be done using punchy subject lines, powerful imagery, good layouts and concise content.
Wrong timings
No one wants to be receiving email notifications at unsociable hours so it’s good practice to put some thought into the times you are scheduling your campaigns. Sending too many emails at the wrong times can lead to unengaged recipients or worse, unsubscribers!
A study from CoSchedule concluded that Tuesday is the best day to send emails according to the majority of the data from their studies. Thursday is second best if you send two emails a week and Wednesday is also a very popular day.
Take a look at our handy video with information on the best time to send emails.
Source: B2C
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