Apemag

  • Home
  • Whitepapers
  • Categories
    • Email marketing
    • Personalization
    • Targeting
    • Trends
  • Contact
Strategy

7 strategies to soften a blooper

Email marketing is a quick tool. Quick sometimes means a little too fast. And even if you have a good check in place, it’s easy to miss a mistake when clicking on the send button.
blooper_original
It’s a good thing to keep an emergency procedure in place for those days. Just to limit the damage as much as possible when Murphy strikes. Define potential problems and determine the reaction in advance. For a fast medium does not allow a long brainstorm meeting, but demands immediate action.

1 Learn to live with it
A typing error or a photo that’s not perfectly aligned in the list are those little errors that slip by quickly. You didn’t notice. Well, the chance that your reader spots them is equally small. So you better leave them for what they are. It would really stand out if you’re going to send out an apology mail for a minor detail.

2 Pull the brake
Make sure you know who to contact if you spot a bigger problem. A piece of the content is wrong or missing. Or it wasn’t the right time to send this message. When it comes to small mailing lists, your campaign has probably left before you get someone from IT on the line. If that is the case, then you can go to step four now. But for large numbers it sometimes pays off very well worth to pause. You can then start to fix it.

3 Intervene in the backend
Fix your message and launch your campaign. Check to see if your email marketing platform allows it. It could be that you need to create a new campaign to be able to send your adapted message. In that case, you can also check if you’re sending to the contacts who received the wrong message. Make sure you separate the wrong and correct recipients. It makes it easier to send a recovery message afterwards.

4 Can you fix it quickly?
If you made a mistake with the images, it is often sufficient to upload the correct image with the exact same name. After all, images are only loaded, when the message is opened for the first time. You probably won’t be able to catch up with the fastest among your readers, but you will have fixed the problem for most of them. The landing page after the click is also a convenient place to rectify an error. It will be the first thing they see when you’re readers click on a CTA. An accompanying excuse can get you a long way.

5 Use sociale media
In addition to email, social media is among the fastest means of communication. If police and firefighters use Twitter and Facebook for major emergencies, why shouldn’t you for your own little disaster? Post the correct offer or dropped piece on your wall post. With a small twist you can maybe even make it look like “intended”.

6 Partially again
If you – as recommended under two and three – succeeded to split your mailing list into good and bad receivers, then it is good to re-send an email to that last group. You could send one with an erratum, or you could send your correct message again. With the first one, your mistake will be more noticeable than with the second option. And you can turn these messages into a great opportunity.

7 Offer apologies
Making a mistake is human – even if we are using computers – and thus sometimes an apology is in order. Especially if you have violated the rules you’ve used during your opt-in process. Maybe you’ve sent them an several emails in one day. A totally irrelevant message reached their inbox. These are just a few examples that deserve a “I will never do it again” message. Even if it’s just to prevent them from unsubscribing.

Also, before your start panicking completely, it’s worth your while to keep an eye on your statistics. Nowadays you can follow those in real-time. Who knows? When you drill down on click-through and conversion ratios they might not be so bad. And maybe it’s better to resolve the erroneous e-mail during a one-on-one conversation.

Does anyone have any other strategies? We would love to hear them!

Sep 12, 2014Michelle Dassen
Previous storyGet more out of your email marketing with lead scoringNext story7 lessons to create more effective email messages
Home 7 strategies to soften a blooper
6 years ago Strategy228
Michelle Dassen
Twitter
The best content directly in your inbox

Get notifications for new blog articles or subscribe for your GDPR communication!

Recente posts
  • Adapting your marketing efforts to COVID-19, now and tomorrow 14 May 2020
  • Communicating in times of crisis 20 March 2020
  • “It’s a salesting”, come again? 1 March 2019
  • The real estate industry: Building your client base using email marketing 23 May 2018
  • The tourism industry: A ray of sunshine in your mailbox 2 May 2018
  You Might Also Like  

An email with a transaction also deserves your undivided attention

A lot of email traffic falls under the term ‘transactional email’. The CAN-SPAM Act dictates that all email that guides or facilitates a transaction over the internet should be placed under this category. Mar 22, 2013Ann Flipkens

Three powerful strategies to convince your client

The ‘principles of persuasion’ of psychology professor Robert Cialdini is interesting reading material for marketeers. To give you a brief summary, the book talks about 6 principles that you can use to convince someone to take action. In this blog post we discuss the first three principles and give you tips to use them online! […]

Uncategorized

5 ideas to steal from Telenet

From time to time we receive a great email in our inbox, where we can easily get some great ideas. A new television app unites lots of classical elements in one email message. Dec 19, 2014Michelle Dassen

How to start with email marketing, Strategy

5 must-have elements for your newsletter

That first impression, you know by now. And then there are those email clients that do not spontaneously want to show your images. Today we give you five tips on how you can still save the furniture … Jun 4, 2013Michelle Dassen

The century of mobile reading

Mobile devices are slowly conquering the world of email marketing. Depending on the list you analyze, about twenty percent and even more read their email on a smartphone. That means that you should keep up. You need to consider some new elements. Apr 25, 2013Ann Flipkens

Cases, Inspiration!, Strategy, Tips, Trends

An integrated offline and online communication at Nespresso

Nespresso has clearly remembered one classic statement in our digital world. Online doesn’t go without offline. Today they have executed that strategy into a double campaign. One through email marketing and one via good old auntie print mail. Sep 4, 2015Michelle Dassen

Cases, Inspiration!

With animated images towards conversion in five steps

Using animated images in an email message can be bit risky. It can be over the top and adds few surplus value to the story. There is an example from our own mailbox we definitely would like to share with you. It is an adjustment to an animated gif image which we have not come […]

Email marketing, Inspiration!, List Building, Personalization, Surveys, Tips

Let your readers play along in your email message!

The example that we introduce to you today of Frankwatching is a clear example of how content can be applied to turn a revenue eventually. But there are more remarkable elements about this email message. Nov 26, 2015Ann Flipkens

Most Viewed
1,063

10 elements of a great welcome message

1,034

An integrated offline and online communication at Nespresso

1,010

Are you using animated images in your emails?

965

Time to bring your email marketing into line with the GDPR

917

More subscriptions, less unsubscriptions: razor sharp e-commerce of Dollar Shave Club

878

Think outside the email: how theSkimm differentiates her newsletter with content

843

Give your automation a new dimension

813

Are you ready for the arrival of the GDPR?

2018 © Flexmail