Eight Things You Forget When You Work In Email Marketing

John W Hayes

1. People don’t remember subscribing to your email list: This is why you’ve got to ensure your email campaigns remain relevant, engaging and timely. To your subscribers, everything else is spam, and you don’t want your subscribers to think you are a spammer.
   
2. People like to report emails as spam when they should really hit “unsubscribe” (See Point #1): Therefore you should make it as easy as possible for your subscribers to remove themselves from your list.
   
3. People change their email addresses often: The average age of an email address is only 18 months. Therefore, there is a really good chance those email addresses you collected a couple of years ago are no good, but you’re probably still spending time and money sending to them. The job of list building and cleansing never ends.
   
4. People don’t read your every word: Sure you’re a thought leader, and you’ve got a lot to say but your subscribers are in a hurry — so it’s probably best to get to the point (and the quicker the better).
   
5. People have better things to do: Your subscribers have incredibly short attention spans. If you don’t give them something to do now they will quickly lose interest. Your email Call-to-Action (CTA) could mean the difference between your subscriber spending some money with you or spending their afternoon lost in social media.
   
6. People have no brand loyalty: Just because someone purchased something from your website a few months ago doesn’t mean they won’t go elsewhere for their next purchase. Brand loyalty is hard won and easily lost, so you better make sure those email offers are really good ones.
   
7. People don’t use their laptops anymore: Email is increasingly consumed on a mobile device, so make sure your emails and (equally important) your website landing pages are built for the mobile environment.
   
8. People’s idea of what they like changes: Just because you have segmented your lists doesn’t mean that your campaigns will always remain relevant. People’s preferences change, and as such you should be in the position to offer choice (in terms of delivery schedule, content, etc.) to your subscribers.

This post first appeared on the iContact Email Marketing Blog.

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