4 simple (yet common) marketing mistakes small businesses often make

Posted: Oct 11, 2011
Author: WordJack Media

For any small business, email marketing is still a cost-effective way to maintain or establish relationships with clients. However, while the response is generally positive, email content can either repel or attract. Therefore, before you dispatch your next bundle of newsletters, keep the following 4 common email marketing mistakes in mind:

• EMAILING WITHOUT RECIPIENT PERMISSION: Many people feel that receiving newsletters that they didn’t sign up for is an invasion of their privacy. It is typical for a small business to launch its marketing campaign by purchasing a list of addresses and hitting on them all. Rather build up a list by offering an opt-in form on your site.
• IRRELEVANT CONTENT: You must be sure that emails have relevance to the audience you are targeting. Put yourself in this position – you have a family and sign up for emails from a travel operator. You won’t be impressed if you get information about vacations for ‘singles’. This is not only irrelevant to you, but your opinion of the company is likely to plummet.
• FORGETTING ABOUT THE NUMBERS: When you have sent out a batch of mails, do you know how many were read? Do you know how many bounced back? Without this information, you are working in a vacuum, not knowing if the campaign is working or not. Compare and analyze numbers so that you can get maximum results from future efforts.
• NOT HAVING A PURPOSE: Many businesses launch email marketing programs without really knowing why. They haven’t established proper goals or what benefits to offer the subscriber. You need to set goals, educate, and start dialogues with your audience.