Sometimes it can be a simple issue with your calls-to-action (CTAs) that can be causing marketing issues.
People continue to use email as much as ever. Gmail has 900 million users. That’s more than double from just four years ago.
Marketers will cite that email is still one of their best sources of leads and sales.
So email is still one of the best channels to invest in. Social media is still great. All the online channels are great, but email is still one of if not the best channel for online marketing.
And it all comes down to having access to someone’s inbox. People treat their inboxes like their homes. They don’t let just anyone in. They might let a stranger in once in a while to hear what they have to say, but they’re protective, but if you get permission to have access you have the person’s attention.
An Email Issue: Calls-To-Action
A big issue with email marketing, however, is the call-to-action or CTA.
One of the main things many business owners and marketers work on is getting the right content in their emails. That’s a challenge itself. It’s not easy to come up with a reason to send an email. You know that you should be sending an email because it will bring in more business, but it’s challenging to come up with content ideas.
Then it’s challenging to find subscribers. There are things you can do to get more subscribers. Here is one post and another post on getting more subscribers.
But let’s say that you have a good sized email list. You have some ideas for content and you’re sending email regularly such as once a week or once a month at least. But you’re not getting the engagement or the return you think you should be getting.
The issue is probably with your CTAs.
Mistake #1. Asking For Something Too Early
The first mistake I see with email marketing (and with websites as well) is a CTA that asks for the big sell way too early in the process.
You have probably received emails where the first thing you see is a big BUY NOW or ADD TO CART button right at the top of the message. It’s big and bold, usually a bright color and it’s just jumping in your face trying to get you to buy something.
Let’s say you’re on a date. The goal of dating for most people is usually to find someone to love and marry them. But you don’t usually ask them to marry you immediately. So why would you ask someone to buy something immediately when they open an email?
Provide some more information in the email. Tell the subscriber about the product or service. Explain exactly what it is with a headline. Provide a photo or multiple photos. Describe how the item can help them with a challenge they’re having.
And it may not even require a buy now button in the email. The right call-to-action might be to have them view more information on the site like the full description or product reviews or maybe a video that describes the product in more detail.
Map out your sales process. Think about how you sell in person and replicate that with your email and it will lead to CTAs that make more sense (and that convert better).
Mistake #2. Hidden CTAs
The next mistake I see with email CTAs is that they’re hidden.
This could result from a few different scenarios. The first one that I see is that the button or the text link (which are both fine to use) don’t stand out enough. I’ve seen text links that’s nearly match the color of the text in the email. I’m old school and when I see text that is blue font and underlined I pretty much react without even thinking and know that’s it’s a link.
You don’t have to get crazy with colors, but make your text links stand out enough so people can see them. And if you’re using a button make sure the color contrasts with everything else that’s going on. Make sure there is white space around the button and that people will notice it as they read and view the email or if they scan around looking for the button.
Another potential issue with a hidden CTA is the fact that there are too many points of focus in the email. This can result from too many images or too many different colors or just too much going on in the email in general. When things are too crowded and too busy the viewer won’t be able to find the CTA even if they do understand what they’re supposed to be doing next.
It comes back to having one focus or one goal for your email. Don’t overwhelm the subscriber with too many options or too many things to look at or too many CTAs.
Mistake #3. Confusion CTAs
Have you ever received an email and clicked on an image thinking it would take you to a website page only to have nothing happen?
That happens to me way too often. It’s probably my fault, but when it comes to things like that I usually put the blame on the marketer.
The image issue happens more with content like blog posts and things like that. I’ll go to click the image or the title of the content and nothing will happen. Then I’ll look around and the only CTA is a small READ MORE text link or something like that, which is fine, but it’s common practice for the image and the headline to link as well.
Sometimes I’ll open an email and I really won’t be sure what will happen if I click the link or the button. The email could be describing a new service that a business is offering and the link will say something like CLICK HERE or VIEW or something vague and that makes me hesitate because I’m not sure what will happen next.
Internet users have become wary of clicking on links because there is so much spam out there and if you’re not at least somewhat sure where you’ll be going when you click a link you might just avoid clicking it and delete the email.
So test your emails on people outside of your company. See if they understand the message and see if the CTA is communicating that they should click and that they know where they’ll be going when they click.
Conclusion
Email continue to be one of the best ways to market your business. It can work for just about any business. There are strategies to getting more subscribers, coming up with content ideas and sending out on a regular schedule, but even with all that going for you there is still the issue of calls-to-action. You need to nail down your CTAs or things will get frustrating. So hopefully this has helped to highlight some of the common CTA mistakes so you can take your emails to a new level.
