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9 Common Email Drip Campaign Mistakes to Avoid

6 minute read
Kaya Ismail avatar
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We explore email drip marketing campaigns, along with what are the most common mistakes marketers make.

Whether you think email marketing is dead, or alive and kicking, the numbers speak for themselves. Eighty two percent of B2B and B2C companies use email marketing technology. With that in mind, it won’t be long before your company, your employees or one of your clients ropes you into the practice of email marketing in one way, shape or form.

According to Campaign Creators, drip campaigns make up one lucrative dimension of the email marketing realm. A drip campaign, or drip email marketing, is a “type of automated campaign focused on email, which allows you to send out a series of scheduled and customized emails to segments of your contacts base.”

Common Mistakes

Here are some of the most common mistakes brands make when constructing their email drip campaign strategies.

1. Using a No-Reply Email Address

According to Campaign Monitor, sending emails from a no-reply address comes across as “uncaring” to subscribers. Even, if you did include the relevant contact information within the body of the email, preventing the customer from being able to simply hit the reply button puts a dent in customer experience (CX).

And it is important to note that CX is one of the most crucial competing factors in today’s digital age. According to Dimension Data, 84 percent of organizations who are working to improve their CX report an increase in revenue. “Customers respond significantly better when they receive an email from a person, rather than a machine,” said Devin Beverage, founder of DevBev Co.

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2. Not Following Up

The latest figures from Radicati show that consumers send and receive on average approximately 117 emails in one day. And, as highlighted by DMR, the typical office worker receives 121 emails per day. That’s a significant amount of emails, and because of that, email recipients are not able to properly go through each email. With that in mind, practicing persistence in your email marketing campaigns is absolutely fundamental.

Moaaz Nagori, Co-founder of Cloudlead.co, stated that brands must make the effort to follow up on their campaigns. “A common belief is that after the fifth or sixth email you should send a breakup email or stop following up. This approach will yield huge opportunity losses. Instead, you need to move from followup every 2-3 days to once a week emails. If you still don't get a response, enroll those leads in a customized re-engagement campaign after 2 to 3 months,” said Nagori.

3. Relying on a Single Email Subject Line

While following up consumers should be considered an essential exercise, brands should refrain from using the same subject line template. In fact, Marketing Dive reports that a personalized subject line generates a 50 percent higher open rate. “The mistake to avoid here is to not depend on one email subject line for email nurturing. Keep testing content and monitor behavioral-based responses,” said Nagori.

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Learning Opportunities

4. A Lack of Personalization

Besides personalizing the email subject line, brands should also personalize the email body as well. Catherine Battos, Marketing & Communication Specialist at Infinity, Inc., advised to utilize “tags” to insert your contacts’ names and other relevant information. “Tags allow you to get rid of the impersonal and old-fashioned “Dear Sir or Madam” greeting and treat your readers like the individuals they are,” said Battos. “[Also], using a first name tag can let your readers at least 'feel' like it’s a semi-personal message even when they know it probably went out to a group.”

“Segmenting your emails based on your leads’ interests can also help you personalize. You can find out these interests by seeing what parts of your website they visit, which emails they open, and which links they click. Some companies include fields in their opt-in forms to find out more.” said Battos.

5. Poor Spelling and Grammar

As Battos mentioned, poor grammar and spelling have been linked with spam and phishing. And that’s mainly due to computer programs or bots sending mass quantities of emails with incomplete data or using poor translations. “Yes, humans can make mistakes,” said Battos. “But humans often use programs that show them potential errors on the screen that can be fixed before sending. And humans who work for legitimate companies should take enough pride in their work to check things over before sending.”

6. Inconsistent Scheduling

Deciding on when to schedule your emails is determined by familiarizing with the behavior of your target market and current trends in your industry. If one major player is having success in sending emails every Monday at 9 am, that does not necessarily mean your brand will achieve the same results. As Ellen Sluder, VP of Marketing at RingBoost, explained, there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach for every industry and sector.

“Your optimal cadence [in delivering your email campaigns] will depend on your business and your audience. Once-a-week may be a default for most marketers, but you should pay attention to how your audience responds,” said Sluder. “The best way to figure out what is right for your audience is to test out different rhythms.” Sluder advised to try out different frequencies, first by sending emails once a month, then switch to twice a month, and then try once a week. For each one, monitor open rates, click rates, response rates and from there you should able to see patterns emerge.

7. Weak (or No) Call-to-Action

A clear call-to-action can help brands boost their engagement, revenue, or traffic. A report by WordStream showed emails that contain a single call-to-action see an increase in clicks by 371 percent and sales by 1617 percent.

But as Beverage pointed out, “many business emails” fail to include any sort of call-to-action, or even a closing question to encourage a response. “Make sure every email has an objective. It’s to your benefit to get customers used to taking action, so even your value-filled emails should ideally have some sort of call-to-action,” said Beverage.

8. Obsessing Over the Call to Action

“While you should always have a call-to-action in your email, it shouldn’t dominate your email,” said Sluder. “You don’t have to put half the message in the email and force viewers to click to your website. [Be] confident that you have engaging content [and] it’s okay to let an email rest on its own merits.”

9. Being too Salesy, too Soon

And the final mistake many brands make is being too “salesy” in their campaigns. Sluder suggested that brands should focus on educating and informing, rather than going for the hard-sell, otherwise brands would see their consumers hitting the unsubscribe button. “[Email nurturing] campaigns build your brand, build trust, and ultimately build a relationship with your audience, so you are the first one they turn to when they need services that you offer. If you only push out the hard-sell with your content rather than education or intrigue, you’re going to get people jamming on that unsubscribe button.” When crafting content, it should be centered around the needs of your prospects, Sluder added.

Got any email drip campaign tips? Share them in the comments section below.

About the Author

Kaya Ismail

Kaya Ismail is a business software journalist and commentator with years of experience in the CMS industry. Connect with Kaya Ismail:

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