Seven Deadly Mistakes That Are Crippling Your E-mail Campaigns - Part 7

This is the seventh and final installment in our series of deadly mistakes that may be crippling your e-mail campaigns.

In the first six installments, we talked about 1) failing to write “above the fold,” 2) improper “from” fields, 3) bad “subject” lines, 4) including too much rich content, 5) trying to pack too much information into e-mails and 6) issues relating to SPAM law compliance issues.

In this final installment, we’ll talk about the importance of the KISS concept - Keep It Short and Simple.

Make It Easy To Read

The seventh deadly mistake that marketers make when crafting e-mail campaings is that they fail to understand that even the most sophisticated reader is really busy and doesn’t have much time to spend reading e-mails.

A good rule of thumb whenever you are writing marketing messages is to write them at a sixth grade reading level, avoiding as much jargon and technical language as possible.

This isn’t because you are writing to a bunch of imbiciles. It’s because writing at that level is very easy and fast to read.

Break Your Message Into Small Easy-to-Read Chunks

Also, it helps to use short, simple sentences that are not longer than one or two lines.

Use lots of paragraphs to break up the text of your e-mail into digestible little chunks of information.

Use Formatting To Guide the Reader

Also, if you are using html e-mail, as you should be for all readers other than corporate offices that don’t support html in e-mails, be sure to take advantage of formatting options to keep things interesting.

Use bold, italics and other formatting options to emphasize key concepts or important words or parts of your message.

Read Your Own Press

Be sure to e-mail yourself with your message before you send it out to the world. That way you will be able to see a good representation of how it will likely be delivered to the world.

Time yourself when you read your e-mail message and be sure that it doesn’t take you more than one or two minutes to read the information. 

Any longer and you’re likely to lose your reader, which means your message failed.

Check Your Links

Also, be sure to check any links you are including to be sure that they do work and take your reader to the intended landing page or other destination.

Conclusion

By taking the time to review your e-mail messages carefully to check them against the 7 Deadly Mistakes, you will ensure that more of your e-mail messags reach your reader’s Inboxes as well as reaching your reader’s eyeballs!