Young Entrepreneur Council — April 2, 2018 — April 2, 2018
Email marketing remains one of the best ways to communicate with your audience. However, nobody likes their inbox spammed with too many messages that provide no value, so here are some of the biggest email marketing turnoffs any business should keep in mind when approaching new customers.
1. Template Emails
There is nothing worse than making the investment, as a client, into a new product and service and receiving a template email correspondence. Your first email to a new customer should be personal and offering next steps, gratitude for their business and a way to contact you with any questions or issues. Make the customer feel like you personally care about them. – Jennifer Mellon, Trustify
2. Excessive Emailing
In an effort to better understand your users’ needs and provide an exceptional customer experience, it’s easy to break a cardinal rule when it comes to email marketing: overkill. Excessive emailing frustrates new users and leads to unsubscribes and churn. Be sure to coordinate your engagement outreach, survey gathering and abandoned cart emails so they don’t get in the way of your good intentions. – Matt Bendett, Peerspace
3. Misleading Emails
Some businesses still send out messages with misleading subject lines, implying that the recipient has won something or that they can get something for free. When they open the email, it turns out they have to buy something. Anything in the subject line or message that’s not completely honest will only ruin your credibility. You can send compelling messages without such tactics. – Shawn Porat, Scorely
4. An Immediate Sales Pitch
Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach an audience and grow a brand. However, subscribers are very smart. If someone is willing to give you their email address, you need to provide them with value and appreciate the relationship. This is where autoresponders can really come into play. If you want to lose a new subscriber right away, try to sell them in your welcome email. – Zac Johnson, Blogger
5. Poor Format
Most people prefer to skim through content and email is no different. It’s critical to avoid big chunks of text. Instead, use short sentences and lots of line breaks. Make sure your first sentence captures the reader and then get to the point quickly. You only have a few seconds to get your message across. – Ajay Paghdal, OutreachMama
6. Lack of Substance
The difference between an email that new customers will read versus one that will be filtered into their spam folder is substance. Even if you send emails with pertinent information and exclusive offers, customers will be discouraged to take advantage if it looks like generic promotional spam. Adding some interesting copy will help make a better impact with customers. – Bryce Welker, CPA Exam Guy
7. Communication Without Permission
One of the biggest turnoffs to a new customer is to be suddenly bombarded with emails. Instead, initial emails should be informative and set expectations, i.e. we will be sending you an email once a month to let you know about our offers and to share news you might find useful. That way, the customer feels you care about their time and their understanding of how you communicate with them. – Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design
8. Inconsistency
Many times, people will dive into email marketing overpromising and underdelivering. They will tell their new customers to expect a weekly newsletter from them, only to deliver a couple of newsletters a year. To make sure you’re keeping your promise, use email service providers to automate the weekly newsletter and keep customers posted on what they want to see from you. – Jared Atchison, WPForms
9. No Welcome Email
Think about this: you just gave your favorite website your email address to send you relevant news, and you go to your inbox to see if they sent you something yet. Nothing. Not even a welcome email. Welcome emails get viewed the most and they are an opportunity to set the stage and expectations for future emails. – Syed Balkhi, OptinMonster
10. Feeling Taken From Rather Than Given to
New customers are trusting you with their info, and it’s crucial not to break that trust. Lack of email etiquette/boundaries, and communicating without offering something of value, are just a few of the things that turn new customers off. Companies should be mindful of this and always aim at sending communication that their customers (especially new ones) cannot wait to open. – Dalia MacPhee, DALIA MACPHEE
11. Offering Too Many Products
We receive the best returns on email marketing when the email focuses on a single product. Using a single email as a broad spread of products does not generate nearly as much interest as focusing on the details, benefits, pricing and turnaround of a single product. Each email is targeted to a list of customers who would be most likely to consume the advertised product. – Carmine Silano, CheerSounds Music
12. A Poorly Written Subject Line
Thanks to Twitter, we all know how to craft a good message with limited characters. A good marketing email should tell who you are and what you want, as well as why the recipient is receiving it. This way, the customer will be able to know what they are about to open and will be more inclined to do so. – Ryan Bradley, Koester & Bradley, LLP
13. No Clear Ask
Despite the spam potential, I’m generally open to receiving marketing emails, especially for new software products. This helps me stay on top of the new trends. Unfortunately, many of the emails I receive have no clear value or ask. I don’t really know what they are offering and what they want from me. This should be clear for the recipient. – Brian Samson, True North
14. Tacky Taglines
Nothing turns someone off in an email marketing campaign more than a super pitch as a headline and pure sale copy. Inherently, there is an understanding between a recipient and sender of sales intent. However, the sender needs to offer information useful to the recipient that opens a dialogue. You should start building a relationship through useful content, then transition naturally to a sale. – Matthew Capala, Alphametic
15. Automation Overkill
I think it’s great to find tools that help you use your time wisely, but when used incorrectly, automation can be detrimental to the customer experience. There’s nothing worse than knowing when the next “just checking in” message will arrive in your inbox, and when it’s clear to the customer that they are on an automated list, automation serves as a waste of everyone’s time. – Kevin Yamazaki, Sidebench
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