Anti-Trends : Things To Avoid With Your Email Marketing
Despite email marketing being a very well established strategy, existing for over 4 decades, it’s still constantly evolving, and what was popular a few years ago can often negatively affect a business today.
In this blog we put together a list of some email anti-trends. Things that may have once been popular and commonplace but are now outdated and should be avoided.
Sending Marketing Emails to Non-subscribers
More is not always better. The era of spamming out your audience is long since over. In days gone by email marketing was much more of a numbers game, with the aim simply being to send the most amount of emails they possibly could.
Sending emails to non subscribers is not only considered bad form, but after GDPR and other similar legislations it is also now highly illegal and can land companies with huge fines.
Nowadays a less is more approach should be utilised where your aim is to provide quality communications with real value in each. Click here for our full guide on how to provide value with your email marketing and avoid spamming.
Sending Email Newsletters That Contain Attachments
With the increase in email scams and phishing attacks in recent years, the threat of having personal information and data being stolen is very prominent in people’s minds. Dodgy looking links and attachments are the first thing people look for when assessing the risk of an email and any communication containing any will be promptly deleted.
All images, infographics and content should be embedded within the email design rather than as an attachment. This way the recipient won’t flag your emails as spam and they will look more legitimate. If you have to send attachments to your audience then make sure they are well informed and pre-warned.
Sending Too Many Emails
According to a recent report it is estimated that 347.3 billion emails are sent per day. People’s inboxes are busier than ever and checking through the masses of emails in your inbox is now a huge chore for millions of people especially if you are looking for a specific email or one from a specific person.
With this in mind people are unsubscribing from companies’ email lists and newsletters at rapid rates, so to make sure you aren’t one of those companies, reduce the amount of emails you are sending to your list and make sure each one has a purpose and provides value.
Not Providing Mobile Optimised Versions
Over 61.9% of people now check their emails on a mobile device, compared to their laptop or desktop. So it is vitally important for your emails to be optimised for mobile devices. In the past it may have been acceptable to ignore mobile users as most people opened their emails on their computers/ emails, however this is no longer the case.
If your Emails don’t fit on a mobile screen, the font is too small to read or it takes too long to scroll down, then the reader will simply click off and delete the email.
With people’s attention spans at record lows and we are bombarded with thousands of messages and notifications a day, if information isn’t captivating or spoon fed to us then we will simply turn off. Which is exactly what people will do with your emails.
Sending marketing emails without CTA
This fatal anti-trend leaves readers feeling lost and puts them in a state of uncertainty.
It is important to be clear in your communications and what you are looking for from your customers, otherwise you are just cluttering up their inbox.
All your emails have a purpose, so decide what that is and what you want the participant to do. Buttons, pictures and links can all be utilised as CTA’s in order to get the user to complete the desired action in the fewest clicks possible.
It is possible to overdo it with Call To Actions, use them sparingly so as to not confuse and overwhelm your audience by telling them to do lots of different actions. For our full guide on how to write the perfect call to action click here:
Wrap up
Make sure to avoid these anti-trends if you want to succeed with your email marketing in 2023. If this sounds like too much effort then leave it up to us. Inbox offers bespoke email marketing services for B2B businesses. Our email campaigns are designed to get you noticed by the people that matter.
