While it’s true that social media can help grow your business, a strong list of e-mail subscribers is one of the most valuable assets a company can have.
You will want to keep it growing ever larger and do everything in your power not to chase away subscribers once you have them. Here are 5 mistakes that you should avoid at all costs.
Sending too many e-mails.
Marketing giant HubSpot considers sending e-mails too often not only the mostly likely error to cause a reader to hit the Unsubscribe link, but also to shun you completely.
“Bombarding subscribers is a surefire way to get them to opt out and could even potentially deter many of them from doing business with you in the future (meaning your brand’s reputation and your bottom line is at stake).”
Ack! Don’t do this.
Buying, instead of building, a list.
Seriously, just stop and think about this for a moment. On one hand, you have subscribers who signed up for your e-mails using a form on your website because they were interested in your products and services. This is the most motivated customer you could ask for.
Then, on the other hand, you have a bunch of recipients who say they are unsubscribing because “I didn’t sign up.” or “This isn’t relevant to me.”
Well, yeah, because you got them off a list of people who signed up for something else entirely. Worse, you paid money for them. Put a form on your website and offer something worth signing up for.
A focus on selling in every e-mail.
This article from CIO on e-mail marketing mistakes quotes marketing consultant Gloria Rand, who said:
“Don’t barrage your subscribers with sales e-mails all the time…follow the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of your e-mails should feature helpful tips or strategies related to your industry…free e-books, templates or registrations for free webinars. The other 20 percent of your e-mails can be sales-related.”
E-mails with content that is not engaging.
You definitely need interesting content. There is no way around that. But it has to also needs to be easy to read and visually appealing. If your e-mail is cluttered or unprofessional looking, few of your subscribers will bother to read it. And if your e-mails aren’t optimized for mobile, you could be losing a huge audience that way as well.
You’ve got a motivated audience, don’t abuse their interest.
E-mails that are too big.
E-mails over 100 kilobytes can be too slow to load. Don’t fill them up with huge image files and keep your attachments to a reasonable size.
Subscribers will likely become impatient and, not wanting to wait for the page to download, may just delete it. Although they may not actually be unsubscribing, the effect is the same because you certainly aren’t reaching them.
E-mails are a personal connection between you and your subscribers, you are right inside their inboxes. Sending these customers a message about a new or upcoming product or service – just 20% of the time – can result in some of the easiest sales you ever make.
Follow these five steps to make sure you don’t lose anyone unnecessarily