The debate about whether email marketing is dead or not has been around for a while. And though both sides have a lot of arguments to support their opinion, the truth is, email marketing has never been more important than it is today.
According to the latest statistics, there are 3.9 billion email users compared with “only” 3.4 billion active social media users.
It is the most personalised channel you can use for marketing purposes. If email marketing is not part of your marketing strategy, chances are you will be left behind by your competitors.
However, there are many ways email marketing can go wrong and give poor or no results at all, leading you to believe email marketing is dead. Being able to recognise mistakes and correct them or just being proactive and aware of what are the most common missteps can make a big difference. Which is why we want to highlight some of the most harmful.
Lack of List Building Strategy
This is a common trap to fall into at the beginning. You don’t know how to get people to sign up and grow your list. Of course, an email marketing strategy only works if you have an audience of interested people to email.
There are many inappropriate ways to boost your list, like buying lists from unsafe websites or collecting emails without permissions from social media.
The reasons why you shouldn’t do this are many – first, it’s not ethical, and second, it will only harm you.
The email addresses on paid for lists are mostly emails that are not in use or just junk emails that will flag you and direct your emails straight to spam folder whenever you want to send your newsletter.
On top of that, sending emails to addresses without the consent and permission given is against privacy laws, with the GDPR regulations coming down hard on this.
When thinking about your list building strategy, you need to give each individual a good reason to volunteer their email address to you. Simply put, you need to offer them real value.
Irrelevant Lead Magnet
This issue is tightly related to a lack of a proper strategy to build and grow your list. You have set up your mailing account, created campaigns, put sign-up forms on your website, you are proud of freebies that you’re offering, so it follows that your list should be taking off. Instead, nobody is signing up.
One reason for this could be that you’re targeting the wrong audience. In that case, you should refer to your marketing strategy and your customer persona and adjust your targeting.
If you’re doing that right, then the problem is likely to be your lead magnet. If you are not offering what your audience members need or want, they are not going to sign up.
You’re offering them a freebie in exchange for their email address, so it has to bring interesting, relevant and valuable to them.
Of course, you also need to ensure that your lead magnet is properly distributed to, in order for your audience to actually encounter it. Share it on social media, and experiment with paid ads to get it out there.
Wrong Segmentation
Segmentation is usually the most neglected part of email marketing, but it’s also one of the most essential.
Ignoring segmentation will result in sending the wrong messages to the wrong people. These messages will lack any personal touch, leading to increased unsubscribe rates and diminished positive results.
Additionally, if you don’t create the right segments at the beginning, you might not have a chance to correct the mistake later without losing some subscribers.
Spammy Emails
The line between spam and good emails is sometimes very fine because your emails can become spammy in more than one way.
Firstly, if you don’t respect policies and send emails without permissions. Not only you’ll go to the spam folder for those addresses, but you’ll also get flagged and start going to spam folders even for the contacts that actually signed up and want to hear from you.
It’s also very unethical, and that’s not a trait you want to be associated with your business.
Secondly, avoid sending too many emails or irrelevant emails. Just think of all the newsletters you have signed up and then after some time unsubscribed because you have received them too often or they weren’t relevant to you.
It’s easy to hit the ‘spam’ button when really they are just not relevant to you. You do want to slide into your audience’s inbox regularly but you don’t exaggerate either. Find the golden balance between frequency and quality. If your emails provide value, they will be welcomed.
People who say email marketing is dead are usually people who have done it wrong. I hope this article will prevent you from becoming one of them.
Email marketing is a very powerful marketing channel that can make a big difference to your business. If you are not seeing results, don’t give up easily. Check if you are maybe making some of the mistakes listed above and correct them. Try to find what you are doing wrong and change it.
Finally, don’t forget that you can always have a free consultation call with us, where we can discuss your email marketing strategy together and see how we can improve it to maximise your results.
Before you leave, you might be also interested in the following articles:
Using Email Marketing during the pandemic
How to create effective Lead Magnets
Stay safe and healthy,
Until next time,
