Tag Archives: Email Marketing Mistakes

June 24, 2021 · 9:23 am

6 Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing

Email may not be new and it may not be flashy, but for many marketers, it remains an absolute essential. There’s just no better way to establish direct contact with a customer or client than to send carefully honed content directly into their email inbox.

When done right, email marketing can yield significant benefits for your business: Increased traffic, improved sales, and a stronger rapport with your clientele. If you’re not seeing those results, it may be because your strategy is askew. Here are a few things to consider as you seek to get your email marketing efforts back on track.

How to Do Better with Email Marketing

1. Get the frequency right.

How often should you send marketing emails? Often enough to keep your business top-of-mind, but not so often that your readers feel like they are getting spammed. There’s no one right answer, but Grammar Chic generally recommends that our clients opt for once or twice monthly.

2. Get the timing right.

Exactly when should you send out marketing emails? The day of the week and the hour of the day matter. Experiment with different times, track the data, and try to arrive at a sweet spot for email opens.

3. Get the layout right.

Hopefully, you’re working with an email marketing platform that makes it easy for you to optimize for mobile. Also be sure you choose a layout that’s easy to skim and to read, and where links and calls-to-action are plainly evident.

4. Get the segmentation right.

Generally speaking, you’ll want to divide your email subscriber list into multiple groups, allowing you to more carefully hone your content to match your audience. You may have a list for leads and another for returning customers. Or, you may have different lists to match your varied services.

5. Get the subject right.

The subject line is arguably the most important part of your entire email, because without a good subject line, the rest of it is just going into the trash can. Good subject lines are never misleading; they convey the contents of the email through a clear value statement or a provocative question. And oh yeah: You’ll want to keep them brief!

6. Get the content right.

If you want people to engage with your marketing emails, you’ll need to offer them something of value. This might mean rounding up recent blog posts and videos, providing breaking company news, or even providing subscribers with special offers, discounts, and coupon codes.

The Right Partner for Your Email Marketing

With the right approach, your marketing emails can help improve your bottom line, and produce significant ROI. If you need a hand putting a strategy into place, or simply need a writer to help develop content, we invite you to give us a call.

Reach out to Grammar Chic, Inc. to set up an email newsletter consultation. Contact us at 803-831-7444 or www.grammarchic.net.

Nobody’s Opening Your Marketing Emails. Here’s Why.

Email marketing is growing in its popularity and in its prevalence—but that doesn’t necessarily mean that marketers know what they’re doing. It’s as possible as ever to sink a lot of money into an email marketing campaign and get nothing out of it whatsoever.

This can happen for a few different reasons—poor tracking and lead capturing, unclear goals, or email content that doesn’t deliver any benefit to the reader. An even more fundamental and common problem is that marketing emails never get opened in the first place, either winding up in spam folders or in the trashcan.

Of course, a marketing email that’s never opened is a total waste of your ad dollars—so if you find that your open rate is criminally low, it’s good to ask yourself why that might be.

Here are some of the most common reasons.

Mysterious Subject Lines

Have you ever received an email from an unknown sender with a vague or cryptic subject line, and opened it out of pure curiosity? Probably not. Most of us only take the time to open emails when we know there’s something inside that we need to see. Your email’s subject lines should promise clear value; they should spell out what the email is about and why readers should care. A mysterious subject line is almost never a good one.

Wasting Space and Wasting Time

Do you reveal your business name in the sender line, the subject line, and then the opening sentence of each email you send? That’s redundant; it’s a waste of space; and, most critically, it’s a waste of your reader’s time. People don’t have a lot of time to read emails that don’t offer immediate value, so use your space wisely. Avoid vain repetition.

All About You

We’re constantly seeing emails with an opening sentence like this: “I wanted you to be the first to know about the new business I’m launching.” Or: “We have a new e-book on the way, and I wanted you to be the first to hear about it.” Look: Nobody really cares what you want. Your email readers want to know what’s in it for them. Marketing emails should focus on benefits, benefits, and benefits—period. Get to those benefits right away.

Names in Subject Lines

Have you ever received an email with your name in the subject line? If not, it’s because such emails have all ended up in your spam folder. Because only spammers use this tactic. Again, don’t waste space in your subject line with things your reader already knows. Get straight to the point, and to the value.

Write Emails That Get Read—and Get Results

Value-focused subject lines are an important start if you want your marketing emails to be read—and our team can help you create them. Grammar Chic, Inc. offers a full range of email marketing services, from content development to execution to tracking and reports. We’d love to talk with you about the value we can offer. Contact us today to schedule a consultation: 803-831-7444 or www.grammarchic.net.

4 Things That Will Guarantee your Emails Don’t Get Opened

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Email marketing can pay off big time—but only if you do it right. And obviously, if you’re spending a lot of money on emails but not getting any of them opened by your target audience—if those emails go directly from inboxes to trashcans, contents unseen—then you’re doing little more than wasting money.

So what can you do to ensure that those emails get read? We’ve shared some email marketing best practices before. Today, what we’ll offer is a set of don’ts—some common email marketing elements that are sure to get your messages promptly deleted.

In other words, these are rookie errors—boneheaded mistakes—that will basically squander whatever effort you put into your email marketing campaign. Naturally, we recommend avoiding them at all costs!

Email Elements it Pays to Avoid

Spelling and grammar errors. Yes, it sounds like common sense—but you’d be amazed at the number of business owners who take time to proof their messages but not their subject lines. If somebody receives an email from you and it’s got a glaring error in its subject heading, that immediately undercuts your authority—and all but guarantees your email gets rejected.
Impersonal greetings. Here’s something else that can wreck your subject line—and thus, your entire email: A greeting that’s obviously impersonal and unspecific. Any message that comes with a title like Dear Sir or Madam will look like spam, and likely be treated as such.
Spammy words. Along the same lines, spammy buzzwords located in your subject line will get your emails buried and your servers blacklisted. Avoid saying click here, % off, order now, sale ends at midnight—anything that clearly marks your marketing email as cheap or salesy.
Bombast. Finally: Remember that a subject line is meant to be short and snappy. If your subject line lacks brevity, it may turn off busy readers who’d rather you get straight to the point.

There is plenty you can do to make email marketing a more effective tool for your business—but also plenty you shouldn’t do. Keep these tips in mind as you strive to achieve email marketing success.

For help crafting an effective email marketing campaign, contact the Grammar Chic team at 803-831-7444, or www.grammarchic.net.

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Filed under Email Writing, Writing

Tagged as email marketing, email marketing advice, Email Marketing Help, Email Marketing Mistakes, Email Marketing Tips, Email Marketing Writing, Email Writing, Marketing Advice, Marketing Tips

June 12, 2015 · 3:54 pm

When E-mail Marketing Goes Awry

What’s the most valuable marketing asset you have at your small business? Your e-mail marketing list is, at the very least, high on the list. With your e-mail marketing list you have a database of captured leads—which is not quite the same as having a captive audience. You’ve still got to work and be strategic to get those marketing e-mails opened, read, and acted upon—a tough job, but highly advantageous if you can pull it off.

Sadly, we see a lot of small business owners who don’t pull it off, despite significant investments in e-mail marketing. They approach e-mail marketing with enthusiasm, but not necessarily with proven strategies—and this can lead to some fatal errors.

Don’t Believe the Hype

For instance: Most small business owners know that the headline is all-important. If you want your marketing e-mails to have any effect, you need them to get read, which means including an attention-grabbing headline.

But there is such a thing as overhyping it. Ridiculous, Buzzfeed-style headlines are too readily associated with spammy marketing techniques; when you include a headline that promises earth-shattering results, that calls the integrity of the product into question.

Good headlines are short, snappy, and focused on value, but they’re also honest and not overblown.

Make it Personal

Another common problem: Small business owners get so carried away in e-mail automation that they forget to include a personal touch.

For example: Do your marketing e-mails arrive from “admin” or “noreply”—or do you have an actual name in the Sender field?

And do they conclude with a personal signoff from your owner, marketing director, or CEO?

Remember that people like to interact with other people; an e-mail from “noreply” is hardly an invitation for further engagement.

Give Something Away

Another sign of e-mail marketing overzealousness: Marketing e-mails that announce company news or promote products but don’t actually offer something of value. Remember to ask yourself this about any e-mail you send: What’s in it for your customers?

We had a client recently who wanted to send an e-mail announcing his company’s new website. If your only hook is hey, we have a new website, don’t be surprised if nobody particularly cares. But if you can position that website as an invaluable resource for your customers—now you’ve got something.

The bottom line: E-mail marketing isn’t just a matter of passion. It’s a matter of careful thought. Grammar Chic, Inc. has plenty of experience building winsome e-mail marketing campaigns. To learn more, contact us today at www.grammarchic.net or 803-831-7444.

Tag Archives: Email Marketing Mistakes

4 Things That Will Guarantee your Emails Don’t Get Opened

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