Contrary to what social media evangelists believe, e-mail messages still account for significantly more traffic than social networks. After all, everybody who has a social network account most likely has an active email account because it’s a requirement for registration.
However, email being a much more powerful medium of communication is only one part of the equation. Email marketers are not guaranteed success because there are a number of mistakes that novices and veterans alike tend to commit. These include:
Emails Are Too Long
One thing about people who read emails is that they are scanners primarily. They don’t devote too much time to a single email and want to read every new item in their inbox, that means they don’t have time to digest bulky paragraphs and lengthy walls of text. According to statistics, users only read around 20% of digital content, so if you want to tell them something, make the emails short, concise, and scannable.
Failure to Use First Names
Do you notice how calling a person’s name in a crowded room, even when everybody’s busy, is a 100% foolproof way of getting his attention? It’s because people are hardwired to hear their name above anything else. Think of an email inbox as the metaphorical crowded room. Using a person’s first name is a good way of getting his attention and making your newsletter stand out above other mails.
Avoiding Pop Ups
Common thinking and pop culture has already thought everyone that pop ups are annoying and therefore bad. Using a pop up on your site will make people leave and never return, etc. etc. Therefore, marketers assume that the same holds true for newsletters. However, studies have proven that pop ups actually lead to a significant increase in email subscriptions, and only minimal increase in bounce rates. At the very least, you should at least give pop ups a try and see if it works wonders. The important thing that you have to remember about pop ups is that they make it easier to bring information to people who would convert, while people who get annoyed by pop ups are the kind of entitled cynics who wouldn’t convert anyway.
No Call to Action
This is one of the costliest mistakes a newsletter can have: forgetting the CTA. Newsletters should be very clear in what you want the user to do. Make sure you have a clear and easy to understand Call to Action so that the readers will always know what it is you want them to do. A newsletter without a CTA is worse than useless – it’s a waste of resources and a waste of opportunity.
Last But Not the Least, Using a Generic Account to Send Emails
It’s common knowledge that people LOVE receiving email from other people and abhor receiving mail from random companies. So why are you sending emails using “From” fields that make your mail look like it came from a faceless generic company? Avoid using the usual admin, marketing, ceo, or any other generic name in the front field. Simply using your first name and “from [company]” will sometimes work wonders in your favor.
