The 5 Email Marketing Techniques You Should Never Use

Email marketing is a very powerful tool in your marketing bag of tricks. However there are certain things that some marketers are doing regularly that actual hurt their business which is not a good thing. It doesn’t matter if you are a mobile app developer, retailer or service provider; at some point almost everyone uses a form of email marketing which is why you should be aware of the 5 Email Marketing techniques you should never use.

Subscribers are intelligent and aware, which means using certain techniques is a recipe for disaster. Rather than using tactics which are more manipulative in nature, the focus needs to be on providing service to them.

Techniques you should never use

• Using No-reply Addresses – Talk about off putting. The No-Reply@ or the DoNotReplay@ email addresses literally scream “Go away” to customers because it is extremely cold and impersonal. Instead use an email address that utilizes your business name and allows for replies. After all, don’t you want to engage your mailing list?
• Mandatory Opt-ins – Opting in to any type of marketing should always be customer driven. You need to ask people if they want to be part of something or else you risk upsetting them because people don’t like to be forced or tricked. For example, many businesses still utilize a purchase point as a mandatory opt-in for future emails. Why? If they aren’t asking for more information don’t try and sneak it in or shove it down their throats. Not only does it increase the risk of being flagged for spam but it also attaches a negative vibe to your brand in regards to how people who don’t appreciate the emails will feel. Instead include it but as an option to the process.
• Misleading Subject Lines – What is the purpose of a subject line? The answer is not to simply get the email opened, but instead is to get the email opened by someone who is more likely to convert. That means using any sort of misleading subject line is pointless. If you trick someone into opening an email that just boosts your open rate but lowers your conversion rate because a curious person who has been duped is very unlikely to convert. However they are very likely to now view your brand unfavorably. Instead use clear, descriptive subject line that focuses on things subscribers care about and match the content of the email.
• Ignoring Behavior – By this we mean the technique is just to spam the entire list with the same email regardless of the most recent actions by the user. For example, most people send sales promotions to everyone on the list regardless of when they made their last purchase. Why? Inactive users should get emails to help nudge them back into action. Highly active users should get sales and special offers because they use them. New users should get onboarding emails and content that helps new users convert. When you continually ignore behavior it shows that you don’t care enough about individuals to cater to them.
• Hiding Unsubscribe Links – We have all been there; you are trying to unsubscribe from some spam email you managed to get on but the link is nowhere in sight. Does that deter you? Often the answer is no. Instead you get frustrated, irritated, and keep looking until you find something or someway to contact the annoying party to get off that list which can include flagging for spam. Now why would you ever want customers or potential customers to go through that emotional run or risk the spam flag? How can that be good for your brand? You want to make it worse? Simply require people to log in to unsubscribe; people hate that. Instead look to use an easy to find unsubscribe option and then add a re-direct that states you are sorry to see them go and perhaps include the option to find out why they are opting out for additional data; of course while still allowing one-click unsubscribing.

The bottom line is that email marketing is a highly effective way to connect to customers. Why would you ever want to poison that well? In theory never, yet we continually see people making mistakes that are going to cost them in the long run. So make sure you don’t make that same mistake and remember that these 5 email marketing techniques you should never use are on the list because they can hurt your brand and business.

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