Email marketing is like a colony of bees. Much like the way bees are critical to the Earth’s health, as they stand alone as the most important pollinators, email marketing acts as the foundation for a brand. At the same time, bees can be incredibly aggressive and sting individuals who have taken the wrong steps, and email ads can have a similarly discomforting impact on both recipients and the company sending them out.
Companies need email marketing campaigns in the way that the world needs bees, and both are tricky matters given the dangers of making one wrong move.
The following are some of the most common and disastrous ways in which businesses can allow the wheels to come off and quickly tarnish their image in the eyes of current and prospect clientele.
1. Spam-ish
If you do not pay close enough attention to the subject lines, the content contained within the body of the email and the verbiage included throughout, chances are you will end up in the spam folder. Even if you do so enough to avoid the trash category, a failure to create quality email ads will be even more disastrous, as your recipients will begin to view you as a “Spammy Spammerson,” as the kids would say.
This will hurt your business reputation in several ways, including turning your prospects off from the concept of making a purchase, hindering the professional image of the brand itself and creating a largely uphill battle for every email campaign to follow. Do not allow your email ads to appear as spam.
2. No value
Okay, you hit the subject line on the head, and even the content involved in the body is colorful and engaging, but you don’t have a call to action! In today’s fast-paced consumer markets, more and more individuals are placing much higher values on their time – so don’t waste it! On the flip side, if you have a call to action, but there is no clear indication of the value to the recipient, he or she will similarly view your ad as being a waste of time.
Stand and deliver in this regard – make sure your email ad campaigns always have a clearly defined and communicated purpose, and avoid the valueless ads so many firms send out on a daily basis.
3. Blindly firing
This relates back to the concept of spam. If you are simply compiling lists of recipients without any research or analysis, you will waste your money and time, and potentially hurt your brand image. Just because an individual is not in your target market does not mean he or she will not talk about receiving these strange, irrelevant emails from a company selling products and services that would never be of interest.
Word of mouth advertising is great, but organic outrage toward a brand moves far more quickly. Make sure you are intelligently targeting recipients and not blindly firing off the ads to just any email address.
4. All mouth, no ears
When you ask someone to do something and explain why a few times, but he or she still doesn’t do it, you need to take a step and reflect on what message they may be trying to convey. If you continue to send out emails that are essentially the same to customers who have offered you feedback on how to improve, falling into the category of being all mouth and no ears, you’re going to hurt your brand image.
Listen to what your prospects and clientele have to say, and make clear changes that align with their recommendations.
5. Novels
If your email ads are incredibly wordy your campaigns will fail. People don’t have time to read novels in the form of email ads, and arguably not even real novels for that matter. Keep your email ads concise, to the point and, perhaps the best way to put it, short and sweet as the honey of those bees our world needs so dearly.
Avoid these problems, and your brand reputation will be far safer.
