Comments on: Top 5 mistakes in email marketing

By: AJ Mulvey

AJ Mulvey — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:20:56 +0000

You’re right Jose! Timing is a very important aspect of email marketing..

By: josemariagil

josemariagil — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:35:35 +0000

Thanks for sharing your insight with us AJ. I would say that timing is not a little mistake. It is another thing that email marketers should care about a lot.

By: AJ Mulvey

AJ Mulvey — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:23:06 +0000

Hello,

Some solid points, thanks… I worked for Constant Contact for a few years and have experience helping small businesses with their email marketing campaigns.

One little mistake I’d like to bring up is timing…

Like many people, I have a smart phone (blackberry). Sometimes my email goes off at 3 and 5am from big companies like Amazon or Overstock! Very annoying and definitely avoidable.

I understand the reasoning for sending out mass emails during off times but I don’t agree with it. Wake me up in the middle of the night and I’m unsubscribing.

Good point on testing! Test everything! From the times emails go out to Subject lines and more.. segment the list and test different Subject lines against the open rate. The subject line is the first thing your subscriber sees/reads…

Best regards,
AJ

By: Jaime Peña

Jaime Peña — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:46:06 +0000

Hi, good post , I share thats points of view. Really , actually, nobody thinks in email advertise.

thanks, by your post.

By: josemariagil

josemariagil — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:50:18 +0000

Mitchell, thanks for the comment and for the warning about my spelling. You are completely right!

By: Mitchell Gumbley

Mitchell Gumbley — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:16:00 +0000

Many thanks for sharing your insight with us.
One point I’d like to raise; you say “Don’t let these avoidable mistakes make you loose sales or decrease your reputation.”
I do not doubt you know your subject, but it would be good to follow your own advice and make sure you proof-read and check the copy for grammar and spelling before posting… first impressions count and you weaken your reputation with basic errors such as these.
We are communicators and presenting ourselves as experts within the industry, so let’s make sure we do it correctly as well as effectively. As Ruth says above; “Test, Test and Test again”.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:05:57 +0000

Thanks for the comment Ruth, and for adding some other mistakes that I missed, you are completely right.

By: Ruth Holroyd

Ruth Holroyd — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:58:02 +0000

Really interesting and I agree with all the above. I would also add another two mistakes that I have seen made many times. Personalisation and using it wrongly. Personalising your email can improve your responses, open rates and click rates. But if you send an email to Dear Blank (the name is missing), or Dear Taylor (the wrong field is used - surname instead of first name) it comes across really badly. It looks like your data is poor or you haven’t taken the time to set up the email campaign correctly.
Also - not Testing your email is asking for trouble. My motto is Test, Test and Test again. You can tell when an email has not been testing when you can spot errors, typos and grammatical mistakes. You would then avoid many of the other mistakes above by testing all links, return emails are working etc.