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.
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!
