It happens to the best of us. We spend large chunks of time developing, writing and formatting an email or a newsletter only to realize after it has already been sent that a mistake has been made.
An email marketing error that is common and easy to make is a spelling or grammatical mistake. In order to avoid making such mistakes, you can start using Grammar.ly. However there are other mistakes too that you can make such as the design on the email body, UX of a landing page where you want the visitors to land, broken links, or simply some backend issue.
Here are some ways that you can avoid these mistakes:
Proofreading
No matter what email you are working on and for whom it is intended, it is critical that you read and proofread each and every single email before hitting the send button. This will take care of a majority of mistakes that you make. Here is a simple workflow for you to consider and follow:
- Idea and planning
- Copywriting
- Proofreading
- Designing
- Proofreading
- Question/Answer
- Proofreading
Customer Feedback Loops
The moment you send your email out, it is time that you prepare yourself for customer feedback. You can create a feedback mechanism using slack or hipchat in order to collect feedback on which you can act. This will make sure that you are working on customer grievances on a consistent basis. This real time user feedback will also help you provide better customer satisfaction.
Here is a simple way to do it:
Send an email – engage user – read social media comments of users to gain insight – your social media team is listening and collecting feedback to help come up with a solution.
Depending on the issue, you may choose to work on an issue quickly or at a later stage. For example if there is something wrong with the landing page of the product, then it is imperative that you work on the solution right away in order to minimize damage. You may also use Zendesk to better manage tickets and provide better customer support.
Collecting and acting on feedbacks will help you increase your brand value in the eyes of your customers. This in turn will create trust and ensure more sales. The idea is to convert prospects into customers and customers into brand ambassadors.
Do not reply one hundred percent on automation to manage your email newsletters. While automation is good and recommended, keep it at a semi-automated level. Do not follow the mantra of “set it and forget it”. This is a sure fire way to shoot yourself in the foot. Revisit your life cycle creative like it’s your core product. Shoot to revisit your life cycle at a cadence that makes sense and use a good decision framework for business impact and UX.
Reviewing Samples
If you are looking to send a lot of personalized emails to your customers that contain a lot of dynamic content, then it is vital that you have a look at multiple variations of the email before you choose and send the final version of the email. You certainly do not want to send a bad email to someone that you work with or a customer but sending a bad email to multiple people in your professional world is even worse.