Email Marketing may seem pretty straight-forward and commonplace in this day and age, as it is used in nearly all aspects of our lives, both professional and personal. However, there are some common pitfalls that marketers make that can hurt their email marketing campaigns' reach and cause readers to unsubscribe.
There are a few easy steps you can take to avoid these pitfalls, and elevate your emails to make them stand out above the crowd.
1. Limit the Frequency of Your E-mails
Do no blow up your customers' email inboxes with too many emails. This will annoy them and drive many to unsubscribe or worse, mark you as spam. We recommend sending 1-2 emails per month. At most, send 1 email per week if you have a lot of upcoming events that you want to remind customers of.
2. Avoid Using Spammy Content
Email spam filters look for certain words, phrases, punctuation, etc. This includes things like using all caps, using lots of exclamation points or question marks, call-to-action phrases like "Act Now," or offering anything as "Free" or "% off." It's important to avoid this sort of content so your emails don't get flagged and sent to customers' junk folders.
3. Create Compelling Subject Lines
A weak subject line can break even the strongest of messages. Avoid using all caps, irrelevant topics, or no subject line at all, all of which usually reflect poorly on the sender. Keep the subject line short and concise, about 30-50 characters including spaces so they don't get cut off on mobile devices. Make sure your subject line creates a sense of urgency but is still specific enough that readers know what your email is about.
Many marketers use Emojis in their subject lines these days. If you do, make sure the Emojis are relevant and are used sparingly to avoid being flagged as spam.
4. Personalize Your E-mail
Something as small as seeing their name at the start of an email has a huge impact on the reader. Use a dynamic content field to start your email off with "Hi %%First Name%%" to automatically insert the readers first name to grab their attention right away. It's a fast and easy way to give your email a personal touch.
You can do this in the WYSIWYG Editor by clicking the "Dynamic Content Tags" icon in the toolbar and selecting "First Name":
You can do this in the Responsive Editor by clicking the "Merge Tags" option in the text toolbar:
5. Use Positive Language
Make sure your email, including the subject line, uses a positive tone, even if offering up a message your recipients may not like to hear. So for example, instead of saying "We close every day at 8 P.M." which has a negative tone, you can reword it as "For your convenience, we are open until 8 P.M. every day." Subtle shifts in wording can have a huge impact on the way things are read. This is especially important in a form of communication like email which doesn't allow for vocal or facial cues.
6. Be Mindful of Grammar and Typos
This one is pretty obvious, but grammar and spelling are important in emails to maintain professionalism. You can still use conversational language and slang to connect with customers in a more personal way, but you should still adhere to spelling and punctuation. We recommend using a program like Grammarly to help keep your email clean and typo-free.
7. Avoid Lengthy Emails With Run-On Sentences
A grammatical issue you definitely want to be mindful of is the run-on sentence. Long sentence and long emails are discouraging for readers, and often results in half-read emails. So keep your email focused and concise, avoid unrelated information, and break up sentences if needed.
8. Organize Your E-mail Content
Have your "call to action" (or the most important information) at the beginning of your email. At the very least, this main message should always be "above the fold," meaning in the first half to ensure it is read by as many recipients as possible. Often, text in the second half of an email is overlooked by up to 70% of recipients.
After the most important information is addressed within the opening lines, you can add supporting information and additional details. Lastly, finish your email with a recap or brief summary and include your dealership's contact information in your email's footer.
9. Keep Your Email Width Between 600-700 Pixels
You should always keep the width of your emails set to a maximum of 700 pixels. This is to accommodate different screen resolutions your readers may be using to view your email, mobile devices in particular.
If you haven't already been upgraded to our new email marketing system, give our support team a call at 414-326-4100 or email support@morethanrewards.com and we can upgrade you to our new Responsive Editor which will automatically adjust the width of your emails for desktop and mobile view!
10. Send Test Email to Yourself to Preview
Our original, WYSIWYG Email Marketing system has a "preview" option, but we highly recommend using the "Preview Your Email Campaign" option at the bottom of the edit screen to actually send the email to yourself. This will allow you to see things exactly as your customers will when the email is sent out, including the email width.
