You hear all the time how important it is to work on an email list. But not a lot of people know how to nurture your subscribers. It’s more than sending them one or two emails every single week. I work in digital marketing technology, so my job is to make sure clients get the best performance from their email marketing activity every month. We give them ideas regularly on how to improve their engagement rate, their email templates, or even things like how to maximize the sending time. Even though this seems minor, you can’t ignore the fact that you can’t expect much on the email revenue if your engagement rate is low. The same thing goes with your templates; it relates to your subscribers’ best interest. So, no one is going to open and click any links in your email if they aren’t even interested in the subject line you put on those emails. Hence, you may have chosen the wrong time to send it. Here are the five mistakes that people often overlook in their email marketing activity. Make sure to avoid them.
1. Not Using the Personalization Feature Enough
Most people overlook this idea because they don’t think it matters whether they call you “friend” or your name or even just “hi” in the email.
What’s matters is the content, right? Well, not completely true.
I used to think that way, too, but after implementing this strategy with my clients, it has proved that using personalization in your subject/body email makes the open rate higher, and the same goes with the engagement rate.
This makes sense because when we get an email with our first/last name in it, it makes us feel like the sender really knows us. It gives us a warm feeling, and we tend to welcome that type of email more.
So if you haven’t used the feature, be sure to implement it, and wait for your performance to go up the next month.
What You Can Do
First, you need to make sure that the database contains either the first name or last name. Every email service provider will have merge tags to apply easily on your subject line/body email.
Here are some merge tags you can use on Mailchimp:
2. Not Using Enough CTA Buttons
Have you received that email where the CTA button is down really low, near the footer? I have, and it’s annoying. Especially when the email is like an essay.
When people decide to open your email and read everything you write/promote, it means your content is exciting. With millions of companies sending their promotions every week nowadays, they chose your email to click.
You certainly don’t want to waste their time by scrolling up and down, searching for the CTA button when they already made up their mind to purchase your product.
So, keeping the subscriber engaged is crucial. Put more CTAs in your email, at least two, and make it clear. Drop the link here and there in the middle of the body email.
What You Can Do
Adding two CTAs is recommended for one product. But you can also drop the link here and there in your body email. More importantly, make them noticeable so your subscribers can find them easily.
3. Never Take Advantage of the A/B Test Feature
Most of my clients often complain about why their performance seems to fluctuate from months to months. Instead of learning what’s happening with their subscriber’s behaviour, they usually just throw the darts in the wall and hope the traffic will be stable again.
Why guess when there’s a better way to do it?
The main purpose of the A/B testing feature is to get to know what your subscribers really want. You won’t have any idea about what kind of templates generate high revenue if you don’t want to experiment with them in the first place.
What You Can Do
Start experimenting with the A/B testing features with subject lines. For instance, try two different subject lines for the same campaign. See whether the one that uses emojis and personalization or the one that doesn’t get a higher open/click or engagement rate.
Besides subject lines, you can also try different templates with the CTAs buttons in a different location.
4. Using Images That Are Too Big
Images can help your content become more interesting. But what people don’t realize is they tend to use pictures/GIFs whose sizes are too big.
This can be a problem because not all subscribers are willing to wait for that big image to load. They’ll lose interest in the middle and decide to just close the tab. As a result, your open rate and click rate will drop.
Also, keep in mind that nowadays, people like to open emails from their mobile phone instead of computers, so if the images are too big, then there’s a higher risk they’ll get stretched.
What You Can Do
Most email service providers' recommendation for images is to use an image size that is 1MB or less. More than that, and it’ll add to the loading time. So stick with it.
Other tips are to always add the “view in browser” option at the very top of your email so when the images take too long to load, your subscribers can click the link and see the pictures on the browser instead.
5. You Don’t Optimize the Scheduling Time
Last but not least is the scheduling time.
You can follow a strategy if you want to get the best result on every email you send. You don’t have to wait for the magic to happen. All you need to do is know the best times to schedule your next campaign.
People who open your email will be different when you send it in the morning or after 9 p.m. This is because people have a specific time when will they open the email. The only way you’ll find out is to do A/B testing a lot and see which times perform best.
What You Can Do
In general, it’s best to send your emails at 10–11 a.m., 1–2 p.m., and 5–6 p.m. because these are the times where people tend to check their phones, and they’re not in a rush.
Other than that, you can also use the A/B test feature to check what’s the best time to blast the email during those times. In most cases, this trick helps my clients increase their engagement rate.
Final Thoughts
Over time, I keep hearing the same struggle when clients reach out for help.
In reality, a small thing, such as experimenting with A/B testing, choosing the right timing for sending a campaign, or permanently using personalization will help solve the problem.
Email marketing isn’t as hard as people think. Once you learn your subscriber’s behaviour, it’s easier to increase the conversion rate.
Article originally published to Medium
Written by Anggun Bawi