We completely understand the charm of social media. It displays your numbers. It’s exciting, And most of all, it can be totally free.
But the numbers have spoken.
For every dollar spent, email can potentially generate up to $38. That’s a whopping 3800% ROI.
Still not convinced? Here are more quick email marketing stats from Hubspot:
- Almost 4 billion people use email each day.
- 73% of millennials prefer business messages to come from via email over other forms of digital communications.
- Marketing experts report getting almost an 800% increase in revenue from their segmented email campaigns.
Quick Side Note: Email segmentation is the process of classifying email addresses into different categories to increase focus and relevance.
Do we have your attention now?
We understand, though, that running a successful email campaign will need money – something that you might not be too keen on spending when you start a new business with a tight budget.
How Much Do Email Campaigns Cost?
Unfortunately, it can be quite hard to put a price on an email marketing campaign. That’s because its average cost can fluctuate depending on the following factors:
- The scale of your business
- The industry that it belongs to
- Your needs and goals
- The number of your email subscribers
It will be wise to request an estimate from your preferred email marketing service provider to set a more realistic budget.
Regardless, if you’re going to do it, then you better do it right. After all, poorly designed email campaigns are not only costly but can also potentially damage your brand’s online reputation.
Hence allow us to list down the five most common financial mistakes related to email marketing campaigns:
1. Failing to Invest in Excellent Content Writing
Here’s a fact: you’re not the only person who receives a lot of emails per day. We all do. Fortunately, most email services have a mark-all feature that makes mass deletion possible. Otherwise, we’d all be swamped with hundreds of emails in just a couple of weeks.
However, this also means that as email marketers, we also only have a couple of seconds tops to get our recipient’s attention and convince him that opening our message is going to be worth his time.
This opportunity heavily relies upon one line: the subject.
And once the recipient does open the email, we only have one opportunity again to keep him reading: a strong introduction.
To make it even more challenging, this opportunity renews with every single line. Think of an email as a battlefield. One move goes wrong and all your efforts will fall apart.
All your spending on your email marketing campaign will be for naught.
We know how you might be tempted to attempt to write your emails yourself to reduce the cost. However, hiring a professional content writer who specializes in email marketing will always remain ideal to increase the likelihood of your campaign’s success.
2. Violating the CAN-SPAM Act
While most of the mistakes in email marketing are committed due to oversights, here’s one that some of us make more deliberately: neglecting to place a method to opt-out of a subscription from your emails.
We get it. You’ve worked so hard to get each email address. In fact, growing your leads is probably where the bulk of your budget went. So why should we let them go? Wouldn’t it be better if they’re subscribed to you for life?
Not really. Failing to put a clear unsubscribe link in your emails not only makes them seem shady but is also against the law.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, the CAN-SPAM Act is “a law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations.”
You wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of these penalties. The fines alone can go as high as $43,792. Certain cases may also be held liable to criminal penalties including imprisonment.
So here’s what you should do:
Present a clear message. Never attempt to mislead your recipient in any way. Have a straightforward call to action. And at the end of your email, include a way for your recipient to unsubscribe.
Just think about it this way. If a recipient doesn’t want to receive your updates anymore, wouldn’t it be more financially smart to give his slot to someone else who does?
3. Being Shady and Mean
So you’ve formulated the perfect subject line and made sure that your recipients can opt-out of your emails as well. Are there other things that you should be aware of?
FTC can penalize for other things as well, particularly if they’ve found your email shady or misleading. And yes, they might not care if you’ve done it deliberately or not. Any type of language that can potentially offend someone, such as swear words, politically charged statements, and racial slurs can also put you in trouble.
Keep in mind that there are two offenses that the FTC tends to focus more on due to how frequently they are committed:
- Not indicating that an email is an advertisement. FTC states that you should always make it clear to your recipient that he’s reading an ad. They have already provided a lot of leeway on how email marketers can do this, so expect the penalties to be quite severe should you fail to comply.
- Not indicating a physical address. Here’s an error that beginners are more likely to commit. It can be easy to logic out that your recipients don’t need to know your physical location since all transactions are being made in a digital platform anyway. Besides, you have a physical postal address on your website’s contact page, right?
However, FTC can also argue that making your recipients take that extra effort to look for your address is unnecessary. Wouldn’t it be easier to just place it in your email for the sake of transparency?
Again, the penalties can be quite costly so be sure to avoid these mistakes.
4. Failing to Optimize for Mobile
Recent statistics point out that 85% of online users use their smartphones to access their email all throughout the day.
No surprise there given its convenience. However, it also means that failing to optimize your emails for mobile is synonymous with lost income.
Fortunately, most email marketing platforms already offer mobile optimization as an added feature.
Here’s a quick side tip: Beta test your email campaigns across a variety of portable digital devices. Don’t limit this to smartphones. Include tablets as well.
Doing so will not only give you an idea of how your email will look on mobile, but it will also help you test your loading time.
You can also apply these tips to your mobile marketing efforts to increase the success rate of both of your campaigns.
5. Being Too Late
Finally, the worst (and most costly) mistake that you can commit in email marketing is not launching your email campaign soon enough.
As mentioned above, email marketing can significantly impact your brand’s profit for the better. So just think about all those potential dollars that you should have been earning each day, but instead have lost because you didn’t jump on the email train earlier.
Fortunately, the solution is simple.
Just get started. Draft your first email the moment you finish reading our post. Sign up for an email marketing platform and send your first message out there right away.
Doing so will also help you stay relevant as the landscape of the workforce further shifts.
The World of Work 2021
The world of work has changed a lot. We are currently experiencing the rapid digitization of things. We’re seeing more and more professionals shift to remote working. There is a significant increase in online business activity. Most business processes and transactions are now being done via the internet.
This is not just happening in the United States alone. These dramatic changes are happening globally.
We believe that the best course for companies to take to stay relevant is to simply adapt to these turning tides.
Be pioneers of digitization. Don’t wait for your competitors to take the first step.
Lastly, we must also have the wisdom to distinguish the things that will soon become relics of the past from those that will simply update and improve.
Take email marketing for instance. It was 1971 when email was invented by Ray Tomlinson when he developed a program that allows computer users to send messages to each other.
Who could have imagined that it will stay relevant after all these years? Except of course, for Ray Tomlinson who told the Verge in an interview in 2012 that email is being used today in ways that he envisioned in the past.
The Verdict: Just do it.
And today, you’re probably making the same mistake in thinking that email had already ceased to be relevant due to social media.
But in truth, social media is just part of the story. Email still plays a huge role in that narrative and probably always will.
We know that you’re probably still unconvinced. After all, this is just one post. There’s only one way we can think of to convince you that email is not dead
And that’s to try it for yourself. Plan your first campaign. Start drafting that initial email. Send it out to your audience and measure the results. Good luck!
