Visibility

As marketers, we all have some bad habits that can get in the way of making our email campaigns as effective as they might be. Beating these habits can transform an email campaign, increase productivity, and build customer loyalty.
 
We all have ways of doing email that seem to make sense, but may in fact be sabotaging our best efforts. Breaking loose from institutional conventions can wake up customers who haven't opened your emails in a long time. Here are some of the top mistakes email marketers make, and ways to start breaking those bad habits today.
 
Sticking to a small stable of subject lines: Sure, they're tried and true--they've always resulted in good open rates and good click-through rates. And, let's face it, there's a limited number of ways you can announce yet another 50% off sale. Yet sticking to the same few subject lines can lead to diminishing returns as customers begin to ignore your emails, since each new one looks the same as all the old ones.
 
Fix: Think about what is unique about each message. Is the sale on only a particular product line? For a shorter or longer time than usual for your company? Highlight that difference in your subject line to create variety. If the message is just another 50% off sale, dig deep and find what’s unique about your current offerings, and incorporate that into your subject line to increase the reader’s interest. For instance, try “Save 50% on All Products-Including the New Acme Printers.” Highlight a hot product, new service-whatever is new and exciting at your organization.
 
Having your emails look too much like your website: Consistency is important to branding. However, while maintaining consistency, each piece of marketing collateral must have a design consistent with its medium. An email offers a much smaller design area than a webpage. In addition, consumers read emails differently from how they “read” webpages. Laying out an email with the complex navigation normally found on websites will only overtax busy readers.
 
Fix: Set aside your webpage for a while, and work on creative that is appropriate for an email. Narrow down those elements that can carry over from your webpage, trying to be as general as possible: colors, fonts, and a few images are better choices for carrying over than an entire design. Then, build an efficient, clear email layout around those elements. You’ll have consistency while developing a unique email design.
 
Busy layouts: Although related to excessive images, busy layouts can occur even when the total number of images is quite reasonable. That’s because images are only one contributing factor in a busy appearance. Other design elements can contribute to the problem, including fonts and colors. Physical layouts themselves can be problematic, with too many columns, and headlines scattered throughout the text. A busy layout can make recipients far less likely to skim through an email in its entirety.
 
Fix: Limit the number of columns in an email to two, if you use them at all. Avoid using too many different column configurations in a single email. For instance, using one column on top, then changing to two in the middle, then going back to one at the bottom can look messy. Be just as judicious in your use of fonts; the cleanest layouts traditionally use only one or two. Colors can be used in greater numbers, but be sparing. A quick tip: if you think the layout is busy, reduce the number of columns. If it still looks busy, reduce the number of fonts. Still busy? Take out one color. 
 
Moving expected elements: Occasionally, it’s good to shake things up. But not if recipients end up confused and thus fail to take action. Emails have standard layouts, even with all the creative possibilities out there. It’s best to adhere to at least most of these standards. Otherwise, readers may be a bit disoriented when searching for standard elements, such as the sender’s address.
 
Fix: Place your address, contact info, and subscribe/unsub information at the bottom of the email. If you use internal navigation links within a message, place them along the top left side. In other words, stick to standard layouts for basic email elements.
 
Calls to action that confuse the reader: This can take the form of an unclear call to action, or competing calls to action within the same email. An unclear call to action can be a phrase that is worded in a confusing way, or buttons located in several spots throughout the email, making the reader unsure as to where to click. Competing calls to action are those that tell readers to do different things, such as “Call now to register,” “Click here to buy the CD,” and “Download the white paper,” in the same email.
 
Fix: This is almost always a result of either procedures that need improving, or a desire to do too many things at once. If your CTA is confusing, was the email carefully tested in-house before it went out? Did you take a few days between deciding on the final message and looking it through for a final copyedit? Especially with new creative, you need a cooling-off period before you can objectively evaluate it. You can be so happy with the new interactive button saying “Register Now!” that you can overlook that it’s placed in three locations.
 
Competing calls to action are generally the result of wanting to do too many things at once. Refocusing your email, so that is has only one main topic, is a good move. Look at your subject line. That should be the basis for your CTA. If you feel strongly that more CTAs are needed, then perhaps this means that you need to send out something broadly based, a newsletter or weekly specials email, where multiple CTAs are appropriate, even expected.
 
Too much text: You want to get your message across, but saying it in 1,500 words within a single email will only backfire. Subscribers will tune out when faced with so much to read. Large blocks of text are tiring to read, which is a handicap when trying to get busy subscribers to glance through your email in the middle of a workday.
 
Fix: Much like competing CTAs, excess text often results from trying to do too much in one email. It may also be simply a problem of insufficient editing. Stick to one clear message per email, or a set list of goals for a newsletter. Use subheadings to break up text into easily read paragraphs. And edit text ruthlessly with this traditional method: go through every sentence once, reducing the excess words. Leave the piece alone for a day, then go through one more time and edit some more. If your content cannot be reduced to less than 1,000 words, write a short synopsis of the content for your email, and link to the remainder of the content on your website. 
 
Segmenting, and sending, too much: Segmentation is important, but if most of your segmentation is event-based, you could fall into the habit of sending too many emails to each recipient. For instance, say you segment your list into 1. recipients who bought recently, 2. those who responded to a particular offer, and 3. those whose purchases were over a specific value. All three segments receive one email a month. In addition, you send an email to customers when they place an order, and follow up when the order ships. It’s highly possible for a subscriber to meet all three segmentation criteria, thus receiving all three segmented emails, plus the two order-triggered emails, all within a month.
 
Fix: Examine your segmentation practices. Are more than half of your segments based on event-related criteria? Look at some other way of segmenting your lists, if possible. Can you rely more heavily on demographics? Also, tighten up your database management practices, making sure that you don’t have subscribers in too many segments, especially those segments that will be targeted within the same period of time.
 
Breaking loose from bad email habits is easier than you think. Many of these habits stem from inertia, lack of thought, or, ironically, trying too hard to fit a mold. However they started, the cure is simple: identify the email mistakes that apply to your program, and formulate a plan to fix them this quarter. Once you’re aware of how these email pitfalls are holding back your efforts, you’re well on your way to a more productive, more effective email program.