In fact, email marketing can be of great value to your brand. However, with so many marketers trying to launch a successful email marketing campaign, it should come as no surprise that some campaigns fail.
The good news is that you can learn from other people's mistakes. Knowing the biggest email marketing fails will help you create your own flawless email campaign.
The 5 Biggest Email Marketing Campaigns That Fail
In the world of email marketing nigeria phone number library mistakes and blunders happen all the time. Knowing the most common email marketing mistakes will help you take steps to prevent these same errors from ruining your campaign.
1. Dear [username]
Several studies show that personalized experiences are important. In fact, 74% of consumers say that marketing personalization influences their decision to open and read emails.
As a customer who expects personalized treatment, is there anything more heartwarming than receiving an email that starts with “Dear [username]”? Failing to include a personalization token is a common mistake in email marketing that negatively impacts customer experience.
Since personalization testing requires additional efforts, this crucial step is often overlooked. As a result, businesses continue to flood customers’ inboxes with emails that have a blank or incorrect personalization token.
Email marketers can learn a lesson from this email example. In this case, failed personalization speaks louder than words.
Broken customization happens all the time and the good news is there is something you can do about it.
Testing your personalization is a vital step in the overall email quality assurance process. While personalization testing varies across different email providers, this step should not be overlooked.
How to recover from this email error?
As strange as it may sound, the best advice is to do nothing. Although it is frustrating to receive an email with broken personalization, it is a relatively small error. Your customers probably won't notice it, and if they do, they will quickly ignore and forget about it. Therefore, it is best not to pay special attention to this minor inconvenience and quietly fix the problem to prevent it from happening again in the future.
However, if you decide to do something about it, do it the right way. Take your time and send a classy, personalized “I’m sorry” email explaining what went wrong. Here’s a great example you can use as inspiration.
2. Missing CTAs
Failing to include a call to action (CTA) or placing the wrong CTA is another common mistake that will directly impact customer satisfaction and the click-through rate (CTR) of your campaign.
Can you imagine sending a beautifully designed email sequence and including a faulty call to action or a coupon that doesn’t work? Or sending an email announcing the launch of a new product and linking to a product page that doesn’t exist yet?
Lack of CTA is frustrating for both you and your customers, so it's best to take steps to avoid this mistake in the first place.
To avoid this mistake altogether, it's important to test all CTAs before sending emails.
How to recover from this email error?
If you find that your campaign's CTR isn't as good as you expected, the problem may be due to a faulty CTA.
To fix this email marketing mistake, ask your tech team to set up a correct link for those of your customers who haven't opened the email yet.
For those customers who discovered the broken CTA, you should send a follow-up email with the correct link. Additionally, you can include an additional discount as a way to apologize to those customers who noticed the problem.
Below is a great example of a follow-up email done right.
3. Incorrect segmentation
Email segmentation proves to be incredibly effective. In fact, marketers who use segmentation in their email campaigns see a 760% increase in revenue . However, when done poorly, audience segmentation can lead to customer churn.
Imagine the confusion of receiving an email congratulating you on becoming a first-time parent when you don’t have any babies on the way. This is exactly what happened to customers after Amazon accidentally sent its baby registry email campaign to the wrong audience segment.
In most cases, this mistake has no serious consequences other than customer confusion. However, in some cases, email segmentation can go horribly wrong and some people may become seriously offended.
For example, sending a baby registry email to clients who recently lost a baby or are struggling to have children is not appropriate.
How to avoid this failure?
To avoid making this mistake, check your email segmentation several times before sending them. Even if that means you have to double or triple check before your campaign goes live. This is helpful to make sure your email doesn't end up in the spam folder .
How to recover from this email error?
If you end up sending an email to the wrong audience segment, a well-crafted “oops” email and an added bonus can save the day and your reputation.
Once you’ve discovered the segmentation error, don’t follow your first instinct. Instead, take the time to create a well-thought-out email copy to express your apologies. You can also offer an extra bonus to soften the negative impression.
4. Sharing offensive content
Some mistakes, like sending the wrong personalization token, are usually ignored and quickly forgotten. However, when it comes to more serious errors, like sharing offensive or inappropriate content, a blunder can cost you a lot in revenue, customers, and reputation.
This email marketing campaign by Adidas is a good example of marketing done wrong. An email with an encouraging subject line “ Congratulations, you survived the Boston Marathon! ” was sent to participants of the 2013 Boston Marathon. There would be nothing wrong with the wording if it weren’t for the fact that during that same marathon two bombs detonated killing three people and injuring hundreds more.
When Adidas realized the extent of its failure, it apologized. However, the damage to the company's reputation had already been done.
In the case of Adidas’ marathon campaign, the problem was likely caused by email automation . Adidas likely sent this same subject line to participants of many other marathons long before the 2013 bombings occurred. The context of the events added additional meaning to what was initially an innocent message.
To avoid this email mistake, always have someone review emails generated by automation tools. Always keep context in mind and make sure that the content of your email is not offensive to all or some groups of people.
How to recover from this email error?
Recovering from an email blunder like this requires implementing a crisis response strategy. This includes issuing a public statement as well as an apology to the email recipients or anyone who may have been offended by its content.
5. Incorrect design solutions
The wrong design at the wrong time is the last email marketing mistake to close out our list. As you already learned from the Adidas Boston Marathon campaign, context can add secondary meaning to the wording or, in this case, the design.
This email campaign from Airbnb’s Floating World is a great example of a flawed design solution. The Floating World email campaign was launched exactly as Hurricane Harvey was destroying Texas. One of the email’s subheadlines read “Stay Afloat,” and it’s not exactly the best slogan in these times when Houston is flooding in the middle of the deadly hurricane.
