10 Most Common Email Marketing Mistakes

There is a lot of advice out there on the internet to help ensure that your email campaign is beautifully created, sent out successfully and most importantly well received. What many people overlook are common mistakes that are all too often made when you are caught up in developing the perfect campaign.

We’ve summed up a list of 10 of the most common email marketing mistakes that email marketers make that you can avoid. Being mindful of these mistakes can ensure that you send content that is relevant, grammatically sound, logical and that is beautifully formatted and designed.

MISTAKE #1:

Wanting or expecting instant success

It’s hard to not want instant results but with any marketing activity patience is key. With email marketing, your aim is to develop a relationship with your customer over time and sometimes this can take longer than you think. As the saying goes ”Rome wasn’t built in a day” and you need to be mindful that you need time to build successful relationships with your audience. Make sure you craft compelling campaigns that you are 100% happy with and keep testing when sending your campaigns out. The more you keep testing the more you can optimise and improve.

MISTAKE #2:

Not crafting clear messages

Make sure your message is clear. You want your content to be powerful, concise and contain a strong call to action. If there is any doubt in your mind that it lacks these points then you need to reassess the content you have put together. Spend some time crafting and curating your content as it will be worth it in the long term.

MISTAKE #3:

Not getting subscribers to opt-in

A lot of times email marketers are unsure whether or not their database has opted in or not. If you are unsure you need to establish: Has your audience specifically requested to receive emails from you?’ If your answer is ‘no’, then you have to back to the drawing board and work on building up your subscriber list. You could ask your subscribers to confirm their subscription to ensure you clean out your list and confirm that your audience wants to receive emails from you. This will also ensure that you are less likely to have your campaigns marked as spam.

MISTAKE #4:

Not regularly contacting subscribers

If you have subscribers on your list that haven’t heard from you in 6 months you would most likely be better off just deleting them off your contact list. These subscribers are very likely to not remember you and would therefore very likely report your campaigns as spam immediately. It would be better to reestablish their trust and go through the process of getting them to recognise you again. Send this kind of audience a friendly ‘remember me?’ email and guide them to sign up to your newsletter again. It’s the best way to ensure that your subscriber list remains entirely ‘opted-in’ and therefore more valuable.

MISTAKE #5:

Buying an “opted-in” list

Buying a database of any kind presents a lot of risks. Your target audience is specific and so is the product or service that you are trying to market, so sending your campaign out to 20 000 people who don’t know you can cause a lot of damage. Another risk of buying a database is that you are way more likely to get blacklisted for spamming which is never a good thing.

MISTAKE #6:

Using a personal Yahoo or Gmail email address in your “reply-to” settings

Email is a really personal form of communication and as such people expect professionalism, respect and trust. A common mistake people make is to use a personal Yahoo or Gmail email address as their reply-to address which doesn’t instil a sense of respect and trust in your readers. It may also come across as unprofessional which isn’t what you want. You should always use an email address associated with your domain name to send and receive your emails.

MISTAKE #7:

Using too many fonts

It’s very tempting to want to use all the font types available to you, but it could impact your campaigns negatively. Keep the focus of your campaign on your brilliant copy, images and clever layout. Don’t let your readers get distracted by your creative use of French script MT. It would be better to align your campaigns closely to your branding to ensure it establishes trust and legitimacy.

MISTAKE #8:

Not checking your reports and stats regularly

Not keeping an eye on your reports and campaign metrics can drastically affect the effectiveness of your campaigns. Without this data you won’t be able to make strategic changes. Take note of any changes in your open rates, subscriber list fluctuations and other key metrics so you can optimise and improve.

MISTAKE #9:

Underlining non-links

Underlining words to draw emphasis can be seen as a sign of poor writing and won’t necessarily have the effect you desire. One reason that this may result in bad results is that most web readers will assume that these underlined words are hyperlinks. Good, strong, clear writing is your key to success, so brush up on those fabulous writing skills and use that to draw attention instead.

MISTAKE #10:

Using lengthy copy and not including images

Don’t be scared to break up your copy with a few images. Too much text can be overwhelming and can bore your readers quickly. Even if your subject matter is really interesting it’s important to keep your readers engaged. Remember that you can easily include a ‘read more’ link to your website if you want people to get more information. Working on the ratio of copy and images ensures that your campaigns/product promotions or newsletter remain just that and don’t become a platform to just send your complete website.

Now you have the 10 most common email marketing mistakes people make you’ll be able to steer clear of these mistakes and create brilliant email campaigns that will land up exactly where you want it, in your recipient’s inbox.