Mistakes are inevitable in the high-volume, high-frequency, high-complexity world of email marketing. Yet correction and apology emails are quite rare. In the article, we take a look at why that’s a sign of undiagnosed problem.
Nearly half of marketers don’t send corrections or apology emails. How many times in the past 12 months or so has your company had to resend an email or end an apology email because of an email marketing mistake of some kind?
That sounds like a good thing. However, when you look at the companies that send correction and apology emails, you find that they’re more likely to…
- Have email production cycles of 2+ weeks, with 53.1% sending 1+ correction / apology emails vs. 48.9% that have production cycles of a week or less
- Use an extensive pre-send checklist, with 59.6% sending 1+ correction / apology emails vs. 48.1% that use a short checklist or none at all.
- Use email preview software, with 54.8% sending 1+ correction / apology emails vs. 45.7% that don’t use email preview software.
- Have email approved by 3+ people, with 52.4% sending 1+ correction / apology emails vs. 47.7% that get approval from only one or two people.
- Have halted an email send, with 59.4% sending 1+ correction / apology emails vs. 28.9% that hadn’t halted an email send in the past 12 months.
These brands have invested more in technology, send more email and more sophisticated emails, and have more safeguards in place than their peers that don’t send any correction and apology emails.
So while it seems that half of brands are successfully avoiding errors, it’s unfortunately far mare likely that they’re just not able to successfully detect their mistakes.
7 Ways to Improve your Visibility of Email Marketing Errors
- Use a pre-send checklist to verify that links, images, subject line, preview text, and more are working a intended.
- Preview every email you send in a wide range of email clients, as their HTML and CSS support varies and changes without notice.
- Run your emails through spam filters to catch any content or coding that might cause deliverability issues.
- Monitor email replies and social media chatter after sending an email to see if people are commenting on problems.
- Involve at least two other people in the review and approval process, as it’s very hard to catch your own errors.
- Send preview and spam filter test emails from your email service provider to get the most accurate test results.
- Watch your email marketing metrics following a end for unexpectedly poor performance or other abnormalities.
Source from Litmus
