If you've ever been to therapy, which I hope you have because, why not? You know that perfectionism is not real. Nothing is ever perfect. Aiming for perfectionism, especially if you do not feel like you are or have enough, is bad. However, with your content, especially content within an email, you need to be polished if your brand strategy calls for it.
An example of those who must aim at making few if any errors are those instrumental to making a plane operate. Individuals with this responsibility will check a plane over and then over again to ensure a safe flight for passengers because there are no do-overs if the plane crashes. There are also no real do-overs if you create and send an email with the wrong message or numerous grammatical errors.
When managing an email campaign, you must double-check the content of your emails before delivering them. This tip is not to say that mistakes will not happen. But, checking over things like your writing reduces glaring errors. Once an email goes out, that's it. Sending a bunch of emails to your subscribers for a typo is not an option. The exception being if the error resulted in a broken link or misinformation.
Steps To Reducing Typos
So, to lessen typos, I check my content four times, starting with checking my content using Grammarly. After, I check my content with the Hemingway App. Next, I check my content with Microsoft Word. And lastly, I have my computer read my content back to me.
If anything slips through the cracks after these four checks, I can't beat myself up too much because I tried my best. And grammar checks are essential, as frequent errors reflect poorly on your brand.
Other Mistakes To Avoid + Apologizing
Another mistake you want to avoid would be sending an email to the wrong list. Unfortunately, it happens, and all you can do is contact your email recipients to explain what happened. You also want to apologize to:
Assure your list that you are taking steps to avoid future errors.
If you've sent an email with the wrong information or broken links.
Sending an email with either mistake could impact an entire campaign. So, you'll have no choice but to send a follow-up email with the correct information as soon as you find out about the error.
The Beauty of the "Oops Email"
To fix a mistake I made a few months ago, I admitted to my blunder with an "Oops" email. This is a perfect email to send if you've done something in error.
People may think that you need a spectacular subject line for this email. But, I am here to say, "Oops! I'm So Sorry," worked very well. I think the subject line was respected because I was transparent. I was being human and had the guts to own up to my mistakes.
But, a word of caution. Don't send the same email with the same subject line. How will people know you are trying to own up to anything?
Tips on Writing The Oops Email
The body of the 'Oops Email' should be different. It should admit the error with possibly with a bit of humor considering how serious the error. In my case, I provided an incentive for the person to stay on my email list. Anyone who didn't immediately unsubscribe was presented with 25% off a future marketing service.
The Checklist You Need To Quality Check Your Emails
Now, there are other mistakes you can make, but these are the main ones. And, I know I mentioned the importance of reviewing your content and delivery settings for your emails. But, here's one last tip -- create a checklist.
Your checklist should include:
Reviewing your content in The Hemingway App
Reviewing your content in Grammarly
Reviewing your content in Microsoft Word
Reading your content out loud or having your computer read it to you
Link checking
Checking merge tags (or the tag used to auto-populate information into an email like first names).
Checking that the appropriate list was selected.
Key Takeaway
The biggest entrepreneurial lesson I've learned is that you're always doing something wrong. The key is to catch mistakes quickly and fix problems fast.