WHAT TO DO WITH ERRORS IN EMAILS
It’s time to send that newsletter or e-blast. You’ve read and reread every line. You even sent it to someone else to proofread, just in case. The email is ready to go. You feel confident so you take a deep breath, and you push “Send.”
And then you see it.
There’s an error.
And it’s just gone out to hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
What do you do?
After your heart stops racing and your stomach settles back where it belongs, you assess the situation. We’ve all had this happen. It’s terrifying in the moment, but usually not a big deal.
What kind of error did you actually make? Most errors don’t require you to take any action. They are minor and can be overlooked. Others require immediate action to rectify. Here’s a little cheat sheet for you:
An error requiring a correction to be issued immediately:
Broken and incorrect links. If your entire email was devoted to the promotion of a particular initiative, offer, or invitation, and that link was incorrect, you should issue a correction immediately. You don’t want to miss out on business or lose customer trust because of it.
If the broken link was one of many, and someone could find the intended page with relative ease on your website, then it isn’t quite so much of an emergency. You may not need to issue a correction.
2. You sent the email to the wrong email list. This can cause confusion at best, and anger at worst depending on the subject matter. In these cases, it is often best to issue an apology to the wrong list for sending the wrong email, and then resend the email to the correct list.
3. Unintentionally offensive messaging. Poorly thought-out wording can and will derail your email campaign. Whether you notice it immediately or it’s brought to your attention a few hours later, you definitely want to issue a correction if it’s something legitimately offensive.
An error that can be corrected in the next newsletter:
Misspelled names, photo attributions, etc. These are errors that you want to correct, but they aren’t an emergency. You can wait to issue a correction until the next time you send your newsletter.
Random photos and subject lines. Sometimes email mistakes get really bizarre. Test subject lines get left in and weird placeholder photos become permanent. Unless it’s offensive or sending people in the wrong direction, neither of those are worth sending a correction immediately. We’d argue they aren’t worth correcting at all, but if you want to apologize for leaving a picture of your cat as the header, we won’t stop you.
An error you should just let go:
Your run-of-the-mill spelling or grammar mistake. So you missed an “s” in “dessert.” Oh well. Sure, some people will have noticed and maybe chuckled, but it’s not something that will make people stop supporting your business.
Messed up personalizations. Personalized emails are great for conversions, but if they go wrong they can leave people confused. “Hi {{person}},” would confuse us, too. But if your personalization settings didn’t work properly, it’s not worth sending a correction over. Just double check before your next newsletter and move on.
The good news is that most mistakes you’ll make when it comes to email marketing fall into that last category. So don’t stress! Just make a note and read through the email one more time next time.
Could you use some help with your email marketing? Send us a message at hello@rbcollaborative.com.
