Email Blunders - How to Avoid Them & How to Benefi

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It happens, we've all done it at one time or another (including some very high profile email marketing professionals). The campaign has been sent out and suddenly you get a knot in your stomach as you realize that something is wrong within the campaign. Then the emails start arriving, advising you of the mistake. You sit back and are tempted to congratulate yourself that at least you know the campaign is being received and read, but you don’t have time to do that as you need to consider what you can do to rectify the situation. Do you put your head in the sand and pretend it never happened (although as your inbox begins to fill up with emails from your readers, helpfully pointing out the mistake, you are beginning to realize that it will be difficult to ignore it), or do you own up and make the most of the mistake.
What's that you say?.. make the most of a mistake? Yes, that's right. Some very canny marketers actually use mistakes (intentional mistakes, that is), as part of their marketing plan. Whilst I'm not advocating that you build an intentional mistake into your marketing campaign, you certainly can make the most of this situation (or opportunity).
We have clients who, after realizing the campaign has an error within it, have rung us up asking for advice. My advice is this: resend the campaign and blatantly apologise or note the word 'correction' within the subject line. The reasoning behind this is two fold: 1: It's like an accident on the side of the road...people can't help themselves...they just have to stop and look. By doing so, you have now enticed some of your regular non-openers to read your email! Yes, this has been tried and tested. 2: It shows that a human side to your company, which is very appealing to many. It can be a very humbling experience, but it can also be a very positive experience..
Key Point: Take advantage of the situation and turn a disaster into a success by utilising this opportunity to speak to some of your non-readers. Most marketers try to find reasons to contact their database-and here's a perfectly legitimate reason -so make the most of it.
Now, I'm not denying there are negative ramifications of sending out an email with an error in it, of course there are - time, extra expense, reputation etc etc. And of course, the best plan is not to make mistakes-but hey-we're only human, and blunders, [Only Registered users can see links . Click Here To Register...], goof ups, errors etc are bound to happen. So, here are some of the most commonly made mistakes and tips on how you can avoid them:
Kath Pay is Marketing Director of Ezemail, an innovative company that provides comprehensive email marketing solutions including a fully re-brandable Agency solution. For more information on how easily email marketing can be implemented, please contact Kath at kath@ezemail.com.