Email subscribers are valuable. They are difficult to obtain and are worth a lot to e-commerce companies. Losing one because of an error in an otherwise well executed marketing plan would be a shame.
In this article, I will explain how to avoid four messaging practices that are sure to annoy your subscribers.
Frequency failed
According to a study by Advanis, a search firm, for Adobe in July 2017, major complaint subscribers mentioned that there are too many emails.
This is not a surprise because we all receive a lot of brand emails. But there is a good reason: email marketing works. Even so, determining the correct frequency is difficult. Different types of subscribers will have different thresholds for "too much".
Consider the example, below, of Loft, a women's clothing website. In a week, I received nine emails. This is clearly too much for me because I only buy from this site occasionally.
Review the number of e-mails received by your subscribers, then adjust the number of purchases made during the last year. In general, the fewer the purchases, the fewer e-mails.
Loft has sent the author nine emails below a week, which is all too common given its purchase history.
Another way to determine the frequency of emails is to set general rules, such as sending at most one e-mail every three days, regardless of the recipient's purchases.
One way to determine the frequency is a saturation test. Take the daily income from email sales and divide by the number of emails sent. Calculate each day and see how the number – daily sales divided by the number of emails – changes as you increase or decrease the frequency. When the number starts to drop significantly with increased frequency, you may have arrived at the saturation point: sending more email does not produce additional revenue.
Synchronization failed
Another frustration of subscribers is when they receive an email and the offer has expired. This is always a concern during a short-term sale because recipients can not open their email quickly. In fact, it happened to me recently with an email, again, from Loft. I first opened after the end of the sale.
This email appeared too late for the author to consider the offer as the sale was over.
When planning an e-mail offer with a short expiration, be sure to send it when most of your subscribers tend to open it. Include a sense of urgency in the subject line and pre-header to inform subscribers of the fast turnaround time.
Failed to personalize
There are several ways to customize emailing campaigns. Customization can increase openings and clicks when done correctly. Unfortunately, errors occur in the email databases. The data may be old or incorrect. For example, if you call your subscriber in error, or send an e-mail to a deceased spouse, you may receive significant negative comments about your brand.
To avoid customization errors:
- Always include the default text to replace the missing data. An example would be "Customer" when you do not have a name.
- Test all e-mail deployments to ensure that your e-mail service provider is correctly pulling and applying the personalization data.
- Check the consistency of your data, for example by using all capital letters for certain fields.
- Run your database regularly with the help of cleaning process, such as a change of address or death notifications, to capture changes that do not occur. you may not be reported.
The product recommendation fails
The algorithms for generating product recommendations have greatly improved. But they are not infallible. Suggesting irrelevant products to subscribers is an easy way to make them worse, potentially generating unsubscribes. Recommendations for irrelevant products may include items already purchased by the subscriber or items out of stock.
Again, preview the test emails to see if the product recommendations are loading correctly and making sense. Also watch for comments on emails that contain product recommendations. Recipients will often communicate glitches. Monitor clicks and revenue generated by product recommendation emails. If clicks and revenue are low, the recommendations may not be effective.