Even Experienced Marketers Make Email Mistakes
Articles & Tips - Marc Kline - April 29th, 2008 - Permalink[Insert clever first paragraph here.]
OK, so that one was on purpose, but we all make mistakes at one point or another, like leaving some text only we were supposed to see. Even Seth Godin does.
No matter how experienced we are with something (or sometimes because we are so experienced with it), mistakes happen.
A mistake here and there is not a big deal! But one repeated over and over is. It’s how we learn from them, and what we do to prevent them from happening that separates the careful, successful newsletter publishers from the error-prone who see inconsistent results.
What To Do to Prevent Mistakes
We can stop mistakes before they happen in our email campaigns by taking a couple of simple steps.
Use a Pre-Send checklist
When you get started with your first email marketing campaign, you really shouldn’t rack your brain with much more than adding some compelling content to your messages and adding an effective subject… just like we do when we send messages to friends.
However, once we’ve got that down, we’ll start trying some different things to optimize our messages. Sometimes we try so many different things that we lose track of the basics.
A good way to make sure we don’t miss the forest for the trees is to use a quality pre-send checklist.
Start with ours and add to it as you see fit.
Test Messages Before Sending
Mom always told you to brush your teeth before bed. Here’s another important habit to learn.
Test your messages before sending them. It’s the best way to put yourself in your subscribers’ shoes to see messages much like they will.
What To Do When Accidents Happen
Sometimes we do our best to run our campaigns through quality assurance, and still we get caught a bit red in the face when a subscriber replies saying something like “Hey, this link doesn’t work”.
Don’t worry. For one, your subscribers can’t see how embarrassed you look. Also, provided these mistakes are an exception to the rule, it won’t make or break your campaign.
The “Ouch” Email. To Send or Not to Send?
In yesterday’s post on Seth’s blog, he apologized to his readers for a mistake he (or more accurately, an associate of his) made.
This is something many email marketers feel tempted to do when a message gets dropped in the mailbox before it should have.
This type of message can be useful, or it can make matters worse, so be careful here. Seth’s post had a moral to it that went beyond just apologizing for the mishap, so it had added value.
Along those same lines, you might add a brief message to the next message you send to subscribers, but generally speaking, emails sent just to apologize are a bad idea.
Most Importantly: Follow Email Best Practices
Again, minor mistakes here and there aren’t the end of the world. But major mistakes could spell the death of the effectiveness of your email campaigns.
For instance, using permission standards with as many holes as swiss cheese (e.g. opt-out emailing, purchased lists) will land you on blacklists. And sending messages that are unrelated to what someone signed up for will severely reduce your deliverability.
The foundation of your campaign should be firmly rooted in the core email marketing best practices. Follow them to make sure your email gets delivered, whether they have a few mistakes here and there or not.
Ironically enough, after reading Seth’s post, I caught an error in one of my own campaigns. Apparently, I put a line break in the middle of a personalization field, causing it to break and show “{!global …” to subscribers.
What small gaffes have you made, and how did you and your subscribers react? Please share and join the discussion.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 10:28 am and is filed under Articles & Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment response, trackback from your own site, or permalink.
April 29th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I also like to include a line at the very end of my mail that says "before forwarding this email to your friends and colleagues be sure to erase the Aweber unsubscribe information…"
This encourages people to forward your mail and does actually protect them from an accidental unsubscribe.
Cheers
April 29th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I use Aweber to manage lists in different niches. I recently put together an email, tested it and sent it. The email was perfect–but I sent it to the wrong niche list.
So I sent an apology email.
I didn’t get any complaints from the first, but I did for sending the second.
Go figure.
April 29th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Aaron,
I’ve seen many cases where the apology email has backfired unexpectedly.
If it’s something only one of two people noticed, or a minor error (e.g. typo), I would even just let it slide.
Still, I think an apology should be given at some point, where a major mistake is made (ie. sending to the wrong list).
I usually recommend waiting until the next scheduled mailing for that list, then send a message with a brief opening paragraph that quickly transitions into the normal email content.
April 29th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Thanks for the post.
To be fair, I’ve made mistakes in the past, but this mistake wasn’t mine (your headline is wrong).
Once, though, I sent 100,000 people who had signed up to play the Arrid Xtra Dry Deodorant online game an email about AOL… and worse, sent an Arrid Xtra Dry email to hundreds of thousands of AOL users.
But that was in 1995. The statute of limitations has run out.
So, when you can, perhaps a new headline?
PS your tips were right on.
Thanks.
April 29th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Hey Seth,
Thanks for stopping by and for feedback.
The point was/is to show that we’re all prone and likely to make mistakes in our professional lives, despite our efforts to avoid them.
Here, it seems I may have even made a mistake in titling this post, which I promptly corrected. In the post, I go on to clarify that it was an associate of yours, and not you yourself, technically.
I would have to bet that most of your readers have taken the mistake in stride, especially since your apology post has value of its own for your blog readers.
April 29th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
It seems to me that the convenience of email and the sheer speed that content can be produced and sent makes this communication form that much more prone to human error.
Don’t know why we (me included) think we can’t goof up on occasion, but this post is a good reminder that it does happen - and life goes on.
In the end, most people really value their double-opted-in subscribers and go to pains not to offend or lose them. I find this pretty refreshing.
April 29th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
What I find far more amusing than my own mishaps is the occassional email I get from a subscriber that asks me why I’m charging for what I do, saying I should do the noble thing and give it away to change the world. Of course they are completely disregarding the quarterly free teleseminars I give (that aren’t pitchfests) and the monthly digital magazine I produce that takes about 60 hours a month and has purchased photography in it.
What I often find on this end, is that they haven’t been reading the emails with the free content in it.
Sometimes I think you can get by with a mistake because the ISPs seem to be filtering so much I question the deliverability anyway. I often wonder what would happen if someone filed a class action suit against the ISPs for their indiscriminate filtering methods, comparing it to obstruction of physical mail.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:58 am
I published an article called "10 Silly Mistakes Even Internet Marketing Experts Make" which covers email broadcast mistakes and other silly stuff: http://www.gobalakrishnan.com/10-silly-mistakes-even-internet-marketing-experts-make/
April 30th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Recently, I’ve been seeing "Oops…" in the subject line used purely as a ploy to have more subscribers open the email.
It’s psychology, you see, people are intrigued to learn "what went wrong".
When I compare the original email with the "Oops" one, they are often the same, but the marketing purpose was fulfilled - I went through the email with a fine-tooth comb, i.e. I read it!
More on this on Vertical Response’s blog:
http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/2008/03/the-oops-mailin.html
April 30th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
The best way to avoid silly mistakes is to test the email to yourself. Don’t be too much greedy and slow down with your campaign. I opt out from people who keep sending me emails day in and day out.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:09 am
You asked for big snafu’s? We were doing the biggest product launch to date for our company. Keeping in mind, we’re a MARKETING COMPANY specifically assisting real estate professionals. (aka we should know better)
The build up was huge. Teleseminars, direct mail, emails, voicemail blasts, YouTube videos, you name it. We spent 90 days to build up to the launch.
The day of the launch I was in another city getting ready to fly back (lesson #1 - make sure you have access to everything you need in case an email snafu occurs). I had just enough time to check my email to ensure there were no "emergencies" before I checked out of the hotel to fly home. (I’m not a brain surgeon. What emergencies could there possibly be? No one will die if I don’t answer an email, right?)
My inbox was literally FULL of replies to the launch email I’d sent out saying, "The link in your email doesn’t work"…aka no one could find/buy the product we’d been building up to for 90 days!
Turns out my old webmaster had misunderstood my instructions on how the launch was to ‘go down’ and didn’t turn on the special sales page I’d made for the launch. D’oh! (Lesson #2 - It was my fault as much as hers for not double and triple checking beforehand.)
And the bellman is standing at the door waiting to take my bags to the front desk…and my plane leaves in two hours…and what could I do?
I put on my ‘big girl pants’ and dealt with it. Was I upset? DUH! But the world didn’t end, we’ve done several successful launches since then, and I got an even better webmaster out of the deal. (Lesson #3 - Snafus happen and life goes on.)
In the end, as long as you let your customers know what’s going on and keep them in the loop, ‘oops’ email or whatever, they are still YOUR raving fans and will stay with you.
Seth knows that (I’m one of his raving fans) and that’s why his post was accepted. It was sincere and real. People can read that.
If every other email you send out starts with ‘Oops’ or ‘My bad’ people will become suspect. They find you because they connect with you. Honesty, in the end, is still the best policy.
Long post, but good lesson learned on our end.
Rachel Young
Big Cheese Marketing
May 1st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Rachel,
That’s quite a story! What a great example of how an occasional, honest mistake won’t ruin us.
On the other hand, it is possible to *over-test* (believe me, I know this!), checking for every single little thing that ultimately might not make or break our campaigns.
That’s where I think a good checklist comes in handy… to cover the crucial aspects efficiently, allowing us to move on to other things.
Thanks for sharing.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Funny how I am reading this article and as I glanced down to the bottom of the page on Aweber’s website, I noticed an error next to the word "copyright". There are some extra odd symbols. Is this part of a test? Do I win a prize for finding this error? lol
May 5th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Todd,
Not a test! But a good catch on a definite mistake of some sort! I’ll get that taken care of. Thanks for pointing that out.