Today, we are continuing our theme of marketing and email campaigns (specifically), so that you can go to market with your course offerings like a pro. Email campaigns are both necessary and influential in the world of marketing. The ability to reach your audience at any time of the day (when they open your company’s email), allows your campaign to do the work without your presence at the office. While email marketing is effective, there are common mistakes many businesses make when trying to target their audience. Learn what the most common mistakes in email marketing are and how to avoid them.

1. Steering Away from Email Marketing Best Practices

When people sign up for your emails, it is because they want to. Sending emails to lists of people who do not subscribe is not only irritating to the recipients, it can classify your emails as spam. Additionally, emails that do reach people outside of your market are still less likely to make a return on your investment, due to their irrelevance with these recipients.

Even if your email campaigns are making their way to the intended and subscribed audience, unsubscribing from emails should not be difficult. The option to unsubscribe should be readily available and easy to do.

2. Human and Technical Errors

You’ve probably heard this in both educational and professional environments – I know I have – but always (always, always) check your work. Emails can be checked by simply sending a tester out to different email platforms (some software includes this ability), having coworkers browse over spelling and grammar, and clicking any links included.

Broken links, images that don’t load, and alt text errors will devastate results if there is a call to action within your email; recipients will not be able to partake if they can’t see or click your call to action. Additionally, make sure your subject and message directly say what you want. Email users typically skim a subject line and before they even decide to read the body of a message.

3. Turning A Blind Eye to What Works

Many email software companies include statistics reporting. Keep track of your subjects, style of writing, and images as they compare to users that unsubscribe or open emails. There is a strong correlation between emails that are received and work, and the fact that they are sent through reputable email software.