Email marketing is one of the most personal forms of digital marketing. In the wise words of Henry Ebarb, CEO and co-founder of Eightfold, “Access to someone’s contact information is about as close to a point of contact as you can get with your customer. ”

When users sign up, your organization interacts with them on a deeper level. Email makes it easier to gain trust, build loyalty, and most importantly, maintain a steady flow of patient appointments.

Learn what NOT to do in email marketing

Because it’s so important, how can you make sure you don’t make mistakes that break the trust between your brand and your audience? Here are some of the top email marketing mess to avoid this year.

Mistake #1: You don’t have a targeted and defined audience

One of the first steps in any new email marketing campaign is to have a product or service to promote, and a defined audience for that product or service. Automation tools allow you to segment your subscriber list based on specific attributes, such as age, gender, and interests. Rich content, customization and workflow will come later.

Once you know what product or service you want to promote, you can segment your list and define an audience to target. For example, to promote the COVID-19 vaccine, UCLA Health sent emails on an ongoing basis to specific patient populations. They worked with population health to prioritize and invite the most at-risk eligible patients first. Messages were segmented based on language preference (English vs Spanish) as well as patient portal activation (active vs inactive).

The campaign was a huge success; the one-time open rate for vaccine invitations was consistently above 60%.

Related Article: Boost Your Marketing Strategy with Email Automation

Mistake #2: You don’t use customization or automation tools

Does your email marketing strategy start and end with email newsletters that you send out to large audiences?

No single newsletter can meet the needs of all subscribers on its own. What is the most effective method to deliver the right content to different audiences? How will you know if you have succeeded? When you engage in marketing automation, the answers are at your fingertips.

Marketing automation uses tools and data within your CRM to deliver personalized content based on your audience’s interests. Automation allows you to:

• Respond quickly after someone subscribes by sending a welcome email.
• Schedule content delivery so you don’t have to manually coordinate each newsletter post.
• Personalize messages by including the user’s name in the greeting.

Mistake #3: Model design is not a priority

Are you recreating your emails from scratch every time you send one? Or maybe you’re using a generic template that doesn’t match your brand’s style or doesn’t stand out in any way?

One mistake some email marketers make is not prioritizing designing custom templates. You can streamline your email marketing efforts by taking the time (and budget) to create professional, well-designed templates. Then you can run A/B tests to see which design patterns resonate best with the audience.

This year, ditch the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) template builders, which have limitations and restrictions. Creating custom templates gives you unique content blocks that look crisp and clean, but on brand.

Related Article: 6 Ways to Review and Improve Your Automated Marketing Emails

Mistake #4: Your emails blend in with your competitors

When it comes to email marketing, are you bold?

When trying to stand out, simplicity rules. You have few words and little time to demonstrate that your email is worth a click. A carefully crafted subject line and snippet, coupled with a good mobile experience, can slow down your subscriber’s turnover so they absorb all the juicy details.

Here’s how:

• Start with a short, compelling subject line: Your subject line should create a sense of urgency without feeling spammy. And you only have 25-50 characters to do it. A busy subscriber will probably review “[Organization Name] Spring newsletter. But, “How to feel your best this spring from [Organization Name]will likely pique their interest.
• Write an attractive excerpt: This is the first line of text after the subject line. Leaving it blank may result in an error message. Instead, use this small window of opportunity to share an interesting fact, summarize your email, or highlight a new offer. It’s just one line, so be concise.
• Use a mobile-friendly design: Users often open your email on their phone, so keep things tight and clean. Succinct content and clever use of headings make reading easier. And don’t overuse the images. When not displaying properly, images become large white spaces that detract from your content.

Mistake #5: You don’t have enough content to distribute via email

Once you win users over with your outstanding topic and easy-to-read format, they’ll expect regular emails from you. It can be difficult to keep developing new content, especially if you manage newsletters on multiple topics. But you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

How to feed the content beast:

• Personalize: Showcase the people behind the products and services you offer. Staff interviews are easy to put together and create compelling content. This information may already exist in staff biographies or clinician profiles, and all you have to do is summarize it.
• Reuse existing blog and web content: UCLA Health has perfected this process. “We partner with our content editor to determine what to repackage for emails. We then write a title, adjust the text, and add a call to action. The information enters our model and we resize the images. Then we’re ready to ship,” said Anne Machalinski, senior director of marketing at UCLA Health.
• Riff newsletter articles that did well: Compile a “Top 10” list at the end of the year highlighting popular items. And write articles with follow-ups.

Related Article: B2B Marketers: Make Your Email Newsletter a Thing

Mistake #6: You set it and forget it

Some newsletters will be more successful than others. Analytics provide valuable insight into what resonates with audiences and where to improve. This information is available in real time, so check early and often – and be responsive to what the data shows you.

Jennifer Coffman, email marketing manager at the Cleveland Clinic, told me, “If you don’t manage campaigns and understand behaviors and aggregate data, it can affect your relationship with your audience and reputation. of your company. Don’t stare and forget.”

Gather it all

In 2022, it’s time to rethink your email marketing initiatives. It’s time to ditch the common mistakes above and take your email marketing to the next level. Make this year the email marketing that will have the biggest impact on your business.