Common Email Marketing Pitfalls (Make sure you don’t fall victim)
Avoiding Common Pitfalls
Let’s be honest: email marketing is really easy to do wrong. You’ve probably tossed quite a few emails in the trash without opening them, grown frustrated with a business that sends you way too many emails, or marked them as “spam” when there was no easy way to unsubscribe.
Here are a few common mistakes to avoid.
Incase you missed it:
1. Spamming and over-emailing
If your email marketing is running smoothly, you may start to notice that your campaigns lead to more new patients, more appointments being booked on time, and more eyewear sales.
When that happens, it can be tempting to up the frequency of your emails to get more of the same great results. And it’s quite possible that you should send more emails! But go too far, and you’ll overstay your welcome in your contacts’ inboxes.
Warning signs of sending too many emails include low open rates and a high percentage of recipients marking emails as “spam.” You don’t want to get to that point.
Optometrists who choose to offer promotions should also do so thoughtfully. Continually offering discounts can diminished the perceived value of your services and actually create hesitancy to purchase outside of the discount window — after all, why should someone make a purchase now if they expect to just get another coupon in their inbox soon?
2. Neglecting mobile optimization
A huge percentage of people check their email on their phones. You’ll likely be able to view the specific breakdown for your email list when you begin sending campaigns. But because we’re creating these email campaigns in a web browser, it can be easy to default to thinking about how they’ll look in a web browser.
Have you ever gotten an email on your phone and had to zoom in on the tiny text? That’s what we’re trying to avoid here. (It’s especially egregious coming from the person who told you that you need reading glasses!)
Be sure to preview and send tests of your campaign to mobile devices to avoid this faux pas.
Most modern email templates will automatically detect the screen size of the device and adjust accordingly. If you’re still using an old template, it may not be optimizing the content for the device.
3. Failing to comply with email marketing regulations
Email marketing is governed by a series of laws designed to protect people from unwanted messages, as well as to protect privacy.
If you don’t comply with these regulations, you can wind up in legal trouble. You’ll also likely run afoul of your email platform’s terms and conditions.
Email platforms like MailChimp, Constant Contact, and Hubspot send an incredible quantity of emails on behalf of their customers every day. They have a big incentive to avoid having emails sent by their systems flagged as spam or reported for violations. That’s why many of these services will ask people who unsubscribe why. If people who unsubscribe continually report that they never signed up for the emails, or that the emails are spam, they may choose to stop working with you.
You should familiarize yourself with email regulations. But luckily, they mostly boil down to: Get people’s permission before adding them to an email marketing list and remove them promptly if they ask. Send the emails you would want to be sent!
4. Not addressing unsubscribe requests
When someone decides they don’t want to get emails from you, for whatever reason, that process needs to be fast and simple. If it’s not — if it takes more than a moment, or if they keep getting emails from you — most people will move straight to marking your emails as spam.
If people repeatedly mark your messages as spam, email providers (such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail) may decide to move all your emails to people with their addresses straight to spam.
Conclusion
Drip campaign emails are a key element of an effective marketing strategy for optometry practices. Local businesses like optometry practices are catching up with national and online retailers to meet their patients (and potential patients!) where they’re at and communicate effectively online.
If you’re looking for help to implement a drip campaign strategy, we’d love to talk more about how Optometry Marketing can work with your practice to offer marketing services tailor made for the unique eye care market.
Help to make your practice stand out
Want help ensuring your practice is attracting new patients who are a good fit for your business? We’d love to talk about how our experience in the optometry industry can help your practice thrive.