Whether you’re experiencing a slump in your conversion rates, or using marketing automation for the first time, we’re here to help enhance your email campaign success by telling you the top three strategies to avoid in email marketing. By averting these mistakes, you’ll be able to devise a better marketing plan backed by effective results and insight.
- Purchasing email lists
Buying lists from list providers can quickly damage the reputation of your business and waste your hard-earned money. List brokers entice you with this method of list building but these contacts could hurt your deliverability rates. The odds are high that your emails won’t even make it into the contacts inboxes because they’ll be bounced back, sent to spam, or sent to non-responsive addresses (these addresses are usually available to providers because they’re unresponsive in the first place). Furthermore, larger ESPs like Gmail or Yahoo will quickly identify your organization and may start to flag your content as spam.
Once you’re marked as a spammer, it’s difficult to repair your reputation. Worst of all, you will have limited information regarding whether or not your email is placed in the inbox. Most ESP’s like Gmail provide insight into how your domain and IP address is being received but little information into resolving the issue.
- Using incompatible CRM and marketing automation systems
Popular CRM softwares such as Salesforce and MS Dynamics gather customer data for sales, whereas marketing automation software gather data to generate leads and personalized messages. Both tools are different, but work better when used together. You risk decreasing productivity and ROI when your CRM and MAP data have to be manually passed to one another (rather than seamlessly integrated). This can cause more data sharing problems, and a lack of visibility from both sides of your sales and marketing teams.
It’s easy to start by explaining the benefits of both processes working together:
o Nurture leads and analyze data before reaching the sales team
o Pinpoint which campaigns make the most revenue
o Large amounts of data can be assessed better with assigned lead scores
o Provides transparent sales and marketing communication alignments
The whole point of using CRM and MAP is to properly track leads, reduce manual processes, manage sales and allow employees to have a central location for all lead information. So make sure you get the most bang for your buck by having your software aligned!
- Increasing your lead budget without proper nurturing
Some companies increase the lead budget and focus on finding more contacts and subscribers, but fall short when leads need to be engaged. Focus on quality over quantity when it comes to marketing automation and lead nurturing. A set of proper lead nurturing campaigns can be scaled to manage the growth of your increased lead budgets without diminishing the quality of your brand.
Most companies fail to recognize that sometimes the smallest changes can make a big difference. Personalizing your emails is one of the most effective things you can do to increase ROI. According to a Monetate survey, 83% of the companies who exceeded their revenue goals in 2016 had a dedicated budget to their personalized marketing strategy.
Spend your money wisely
Marketing automation is a sensitive tool that if used wrong, can damage the prospects of your business. But by avoiding these harmful trends, you can retain a solid reputation with your digital audience. Remember to always keep your content original and personal, use compatible software, and sway away from buyer lists and spam-related marketing promotions.
Good luck!
