We delve into what these two practices are, how they differ from each other, and their importance to your organization.
PCMag reviews products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use.
If you run a new small business, then you’re probably still building out your marketing strategy. During your planning and research, you likely came across the term "marketing automation." Think of marketing automation as the smarter and more powerful older sibling of email marketing. Both practices let you reach large audiences with scheduled and automated email messages. Both use information pulled from customer relationship management (CRM) software to send relevant and personalized messages to segmented customer lists. The similarities are plentiful.
“Email marketing is a piece of marketing automation,” explained Jon Dick, VP of Marketing at HubSpot. “Think of a cake. If marketing is a cake, then email marketing is like the flour inside of the cake. Email marketing is one of the ingredients. You could do marketing automation without email marketing but the cake wouldn’t taste as good.”
In other words, email marketing is an excellent tool for giving marketers reach, which is the ability to get promotions in front of as many customers as possible. Marketing automation is about adding relevance to that reach.
“Every marketer wants to have relevance with their audience," said Dick. "Relevance requires marketers to do two things: provide context and act with speed. That’s what marketing automation helps you do.”
6 Scary Email Marketing Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
What email marketer isn’t stricken with anxiety when it’s time to hit send on a new campaign? We all make mistakes, but a lot of those mistakes are avoidable with the right care and preparation. Here are six of the most common and preventable email marketing mistakes and how you can take steps to avoid them.
The mistake: A missing data source
Your email marketing content is only as strong as the data that powers it. There’s nothing worse than plotting out your most personalized campaign ever, only to have it break because some of your data fields aren’t populating correctly. With more and more marketers taking advantage of customer data in their emails, it’s even more important to make sure that data is sound.
How to avoid it: Always have fallback content ready, just in case there is a data field missing. Also be sure to double-check your fields – the last thing you need is an expletive in place of a customer’s name sneaking through! Want more tips for reviewing your personalized emails? Use our Email Marketing Personalization Checklist before you deploy your next campaign.
The mistake: Broken images or animation
Broken images are the bane of any email marketer’s existence, but this is still a common problem across the board. And while you can’t control which email clients your customers use, it helps to have a good understanding of who is using what.
How to avoid it: Many email clients block images by default, but there are still steps you can take ensure you’re creating a great experience for your customers. Taking advantage of alt-text will help you give your customers a heads-up as to what should be appearing in their image blocks when nothing is appearing at all. It’s also important to test your email creative across email clients, so use a took like Litmus to preview your campaign before you deploy it.
The mistake: Generic, irrelevant content
Sending the exact same message to all of your customers is an incredibly common mistake and creates a big missed opportunity. According to Accenture, 75% of consumers are more likely to buy from a retailer that uses personalization and makes recommendations based on past purchase behavior. Relevancy, context, and true 1:1 personalization are all key for building trust with your customers.
The mistake: Spelling and grammar issues
It’s happened to the best of us: we hit send, only to realize four seconds later that we made a glaringly obvious spelling mistake on an otherwise awesome email. And guess what our customers notice immediately? Not your amazing, personalized offer and the beautiful imagery that goes along with it, but the fact that you used the wrong “their.”
How to avoid it: It should go without saying that every email you send needs a second pair of eyes – Every. Single Time. Always identify a colleague who can give your email a read and provide honest feedback. If you want an extra layer of protection, try a tool like Grammarly that will automatically catch both spelling and grammatical errors for you.
The mistake: Broken or dead-end links
If your call-to-action is broken, it’s impossible to reach your email marketing goals and track your click-through rates. And speaking of tracking, if you don’t have your UTM parameters in place, you also won’t be able to track any leads generated via email.
How to avoid it:
Add extra time to your email marketing production schedule so you can QA every part of your email and ensure that all of your links are fully functional. Always review your deadlines too – you should never hit send unless you’re 100% confident that everything is working properly. Rushing to get a campaign out the door is never a good idea!
0 comments:
Post a Comment