At Leadgate Europe, we have sent over half a million emails in the past year. This includes general monthly newsletters and automated emails triggered when someone has visited a page on a website. This provides us with ample opportunities to test different aspects of an email. What works and what doesn’t work at all?
In this blog we want to share some common mistakes in email marketing. We will skip the obvious mistakes such as spelling mistakes and broken links. Instead, we will discuss mistakes that are less obvious but still greatly impact email performance metrics such as the amount of opens, clicks and unsubscribes.
1. Misleading subject line
Let’s start at the beginning: the subject line. The intention, of course, it for the recipient to open your newsletter. The best way to convince the recipient is with a catchy subject line. It is often forgotten that this is also your company’s business card. If you promise a discount in the subject line that in reality is not there at all, this will negatively affect the recipient’s perception of your company. The image below from Litmus and Fluent clearly shows people often feel misled by the subject line. Therefore, give an honest picture of the subject of the newsletter.
At Leadgate we find that a subject line such as ‘Newsletter February’ results in more opens and clicks than a subject line that clearly puts a lot of effort in convincing a reader. In this regard, it is important for a company to also carry out various A/B tests to see if this works for your company.
2. Sending with a 'noreply' address
The purpose of a newsletter is to encourage interaction with a recipient. When sent from a noreply address, as a sender you are (unintentionally) indicating that you don’t want recipients to respond or contact you. As recipients, we prefer a personal approach; when a noreply address is used this personal “touch” is gone.
Another important reason not to use a noreply address is because it increases spam complaints. People often don’t feel like ‘searching’ for the unsubscribe link and respond to the email asking to be removed from the mailing list. When someone can’t respond, they are more likely to submit a spam complaint.
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3. Too many Call to Actions (CTAs)
Before creating and sending an email, it is important to determine the purpose of the email. When opening the email, the recipient should immediately see what the purpose is. Can the recipient read more information on the website, request a demo or register for a webinar?
Because companies don’t want to send too many emails for fear of unsubscribes, emails are often crammed with different topics and calls to actions. This creates confusion for the recipient, at the expense of the CTR (Click Through Ratio). The CTR is generally lower in a newsletter with many different CTAs than in a newsletter with fewer CTAs.
Below is a very clear example from Netflix where they use the buttons for one purpose: watching series. You can play the series directly, add it to your list or watch all series/films.
4. Image-only emails
Graphically it is often beautiful, but it isn’t very practical: an email consisting only of images. What is often not taken into account is that only 33% of recipients have their email client set to see the images directly. This means that 67% of recipients will see an empty email unless they download the images. A missed opportunity.
The example below from Superoffice shows the difference between an image-only mailing and one where the ratio of images to text is 50/50. (SuperOffice, 2017)
The email with text remains readable to the recipient and can still convince the recipient to download the images. In addition, spam filters often mark emails with only images as spam and thus the email doesn’t get into the inbox at all. Therefore, make sure that an email consists of at least 50% text, so that a recipient always sees what the email is about.
5. Breaking the law
It is often not clear what the rules are for sending a mailing. Lists are often bought-up and mailed directly to, even though this is not allowed and can result in (high) fines. For old lists owned by your own company, send an opt-in email first. This comes across as reliable and prevents spam complaints.
Also, we often see that the ‘unsubscribe’ button is hidden or a complete questionnaire has to be filled out about the reason for unsubscribing. According to Dutch law, unsubscribing from a mailing must be free and simple. Making it mandatory to fill out a questionnaire doesn’t fall under ‘simple’ and therefore you are in violation of the law.
Finally, the automatic checking of the ‘subscribe to newsletter’ field is not allowed. Someone has to give explicit permission to receive a newsletter.
Email marketing is and often remains trial and error. What works for company X may not automatically work for company Y. Avoiding the above mentioned mistakes will certainly help to positively develop your mailing campaigns.
How does Leadgate help?
After reading this blog, do you still have questions about how you can best use email marketing for your IT-organization? Request a consultation with our specialists via our contact page or call +31 10 268 1148. We are happy to help you!
