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Warren Corpus is a pioneer in the email marketing industry, with over a decade of experience in email delivery and internet marketing compliance. He is often called the Dean of Delivery and the Count of Accountability.

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Identifying the Top Email Marketing Mistakes: Are You Guilty?

Written on
Apr 20, 2006 
Author
Warren Corpus  |
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Identifying the Top Email Marketing Mistakes: Are You Guilty?

• Forgetting to send test seeds for approval
Sounds like another no-brainer, but many publishers get so excited to blast out that killer campaign, they forget to seek approval from their advertiser. Yes, in most examples a forgotten test is not the end of the world, but I have heard cases where advertisers do not begin tracking sales until approval… holy lost revenue, Batman!

• Sending demographic-specific campaigns to non-targeted lists
Ladies, have any of you ever received an email for a male-enhancement drug? No? Never? Okay, I stand corrected. Seriously though — hitting the wrong demographic can result in low conversions at best, and complaints and unsubscribes at worst. You have to use your common sense. Obviously a lingerie ad would perform best to a list of female subscribers, but you may also want to target general consumer and male lists during the holidays or Valentine’s Day and earn some of revenue from men buying gifts.

I guess there’s such a thing as “over-targeting” too. I recently purchased some items online for a friend’s baby shower, and now people wonder why I get so many ads for things only a nursing mother would find useful.

• Missing personlization
Taking a look at my Junk mail folder, I find scores of emails that start off with “Dear [%first_name%] [%last_name%]“. Even worse, dozens of emails have subject lines like “[%first_name%], are you sick of the 9-to-5?” These emails don’t even elicit an open from me. If you don’t have the data to fill these fields, simply alter your creative or Subject line accordingly so those fields are not required. However, if you have the time, ability, and data to personalize your email blast, and your advertiser’s creative allows, you will most likely garner a much higher conversion rate than a creative that reads “Dear SUBSCRIBER, we are hiring in YOUR CITY.”

• Not suppressing opt-outs
Yes, another CAN-SPAM no-brainer, but only 5 percent of commercial email sent last year was fully compliant. Major e-tailers seem to have suppression down to a science: 100% of e-tailers surveyed have opt-out verbiage (including postal address) and unsubscribe mechanisms on their email advertisements. Isn’t your company or brand just as important to you? Take the time and effort to not only obtain current suppression files from your advertisers, but to manage your own opt-outs in a timely manner. Put simply, it’s the law.

• Altering creative
Some advertisers give you free reign over email creatives — “Just get me traffic,” they say. Others, especially those advertising big name brands, don’t want you changing a single word on their creatives. Use caution when altering creatives sent to you by your advertisers — many times those creatives were designed with deliverability, performance, and compliance in mind. If you still decide to make changes, be sure you get approval from your advertiser.

• Not reading contracts/IOs
Blake from Glengarry Glen Ross taught us that salespeople should “A.B.C. — Always Be Closing!” Unfortunately, the green, overzealous type may forget to R.T.F.C — Read The Freakin’ Contract. Boys and girls, there’s a lot to be learned in those IOs and contracts — things like payment terms and scrub rates and performance guarantees. Before marking up that sales thermometer and grabbing that cup of coffee (“Coffee is for closers!”), make sure you can deliver on that contract.

So, how many of these “10 Email Commandments” are you guilty of? Let’s take a look at our accurate but totally unscientific scoring chart:

0 to 1: You are an email marketing guru. You should be lecturing at Harvard, or at least ad:tech.
2 to 3: You are probably making some considerable money in the industry — are you hiring?
4 to 6: You are run-of-the-mill, middle-of-the-road. The meaty part of the bell curve.
7 to 8: Better clean your act up — you’re about to get served.
9 to 10: You must be hosting at those “offshore server farms” I’m always getting spammed about.





Reader Comments.

Coffee is for closers!

Posted by Larry Gordon | 2:52 pm on May 18, 2006.

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