While it seems easy for anybody to do, the fact that anybody can get started with email marketing is often one of the main issues that lead to a lot of mistakes.
All you need to do is import your list, set your personalisation, and after just a couple of clicks you can send any marketing email you like to tens of thousands of inboxes for next to nothing. It’s low cost and easy, which is why everybody does it.
However, email marketing could also turn out to be the most expensive campaign that you will ever run. If you use a headline that puts people off or send the wrong message to a large audience, you could easily lose any prospect of that individual engaging with your marketing and eventually becoming a paying customer.
Common Email Marketing Mistakes – 10 Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
Using the Wrong List
No matter how up to date or how clean your list is, avoid using it if it contains nothing but email addresses. While you might think a large list is a good thing, it can backfire if you don’t know anything about the recipients that you are sending to, as you have no option to personalise the communication.
Failing to Make Emails Mobile Friendly
Almost two-thirds of email today is opened on a mobile device. This means that readers are on the move using devices with smaller screens and narrower line measures. Because of this, the fastest way to lose your prospects is to present them with an email that is unreadable. Mobile friendliness is no longer optional; it’s a must.
Long Subject Lines
Some marketers try to get as close as possible to the eighty-character limit in the subject line. However, studies have found that the subject lines that perform best are only three words or even less. Keeping it short and to the point is the best way forward when it comes to email marketing.
Too Much Selling
While it might seem like the point of email marketing is to sell your products or services, too many promotional emails are going to put your recipients off. If you’re only sending promotional emails and not putting any effort into actually engaging your recipients in conversation, then you’re at risk of losing them.
No CTA
Getting your reader to do what you want them to do is the most basic part of any campaign strategy, but around seventy percent of small businesses don’t even include a call to action on their website. Even the best and most creative email template designs with amazing copy are going to fall flat if your reader has no idea what you want them to do with it, so don’t miss out your CTA.
No Email Testing
With so many resources available to email marketers today such as segmented audiences and different demographics, A/B testing has never been more important. Without testing your email campaigns, it’s harder to gather data, and you need data to learn from for continuous improvement.
No Consistency
When it comes to designing and writing your marketing emails, they should not sound completely different to your social media advertising, public advertising, or any other channel that you use. If it sometimes seems like the email marketing materials are coming from a different brand, you’ve got a problem.
Not Using an ESP
Using your internal system might seem like a good way to make money at first, but it can be a huge mistake. An Email Service Provider is a specialist in the creation, delivery, and management of marketing emails and will usually include features such as mailing list segmentation, automated unsubscribes, and analytics.
Failing to Comply with the Law
It is now legally required in most countries around the world to provide an unsubscribe option with any marketing emails that you send and that the email contains the sender’s full postal address. Failing to do this means that your company will be breaking the law.
Sending Too Many Emails
You’re excited about your brand, but bear in mind that your customers might not be so enthusiastic. They probably don’t want to hear from you every day and sending too many emails will backfire on you quickly.
Worst Email Marketing Mistakes That Will Send You to Spam
One of the worst things that can happen to an email marketer is messages ending up in the spam box, but this is sadly more common than you might think. There are many reasons why your marketing emails might get caught in the spam filter and never reach your recipient’s inboxes, including:
- Spam trigger words in the subject line
- Sending too many emails
- Sending emails to contacts who have not opted in
- Being marked as spam by a recipient
Bear in mind that even if a recipient has opted in to receive email marketing messages from you, they might still mark your emails as spam if they are getting messages from you that they feel are irrelevant, if they are getting too many emails from your company, or if they cannot find the option to unsubscribe from your marketing emails if they no longer want to receive them.
Worst Email Marketing Mistakes – Buying an Email List
Buying an email list is one of the worst email marketing mistakes that you can make – especially when you do cold outreach or trying to get guest post placements.
While it might seem like a quick, simple, and cheap way to get a bunch of email addresses to start sending your marketing materials to, chances are that all you are going to do is annoy the recipients and ultimately, it could damage the reputation of your brand.
Instead of purchasing an email list, it’s best to take the scenic route when it comes to building your list and making sure that everybody on it actually wants to hear from you.
You can do this by including an opt-in box in the checkout section of your eCommerce store, a sign-up form on your website or social media, or asking customers to provide their email addresses to sign up to your newsletter in your physical shop or location.
Can You Recover From eCommerce Marketing Mistakes?
Most marketers will make some mistakes when first starting out with email marketing.
The good news is that some common mistakes might be recoverable; however, more severe mistakes might damage your sender reputation and lose you a lot of recipients, which will be harder to come back from.
It is also worth bearing in mind that some email marketing mistakes such as sending spam emails or emails that are often marked as spam could see your sender address blacklisted, which can sometimes be difficult to rectify depending on the reason.
Each email marketer has a sender score that works similarly to a credit score; the lower your score, the less likely your emails will actually be delivered to the recipients’ inboxes.
Why Spam Trigger Words Can Be One of the Worst Email Mistakes
When writing your marketing email copy, you might not be thinking about which words might be seen as spam. However, the truth is that there is quite a long list of some common words that are often used by spammers that the spam filter will immediately pick up on once you have sent your email to your recipients.
It is important to become familiar with the various spam trigger words and avoid using them in your subject lines and emails at all costs in order to avoid having your legitimate marketing emails sent to spam boxes where they will likely never be read.
For example, words and phrases like ‘free’, ‘top deal’, ‘buy now’, ‘no credit check’, and ‘win big’ are often used by spammers and may cause suspicion if you include these in your emails.
Steps to Avoid Common Email Marketing Mistakes
The good news is that if you are getting started with email marketing, there are several things that you can do to avoid making these common mistakes and get better results from your email marketing campaigns.
Clean Your List
Regularly going through your email list to remove unused email addresses, duplicates, and other addresses that are unlikely to receive emails will keep your sender score and deliverability rate high.
Double Opt-In
Offering double opt-in gives you the opportunity to double-check that recipients actually want to receive emails from you. While many recipients will not confirm that they want to receive emails, it is worth taking this loss from your email list since you know for certain that anybody you are sending emails to is currently happy to receive them.
Clear Unsubscribe
If recipients do not want to receive emails from you any longer but are finding it difficult to unsubscribe, they might just report your message as spam. To avoid this and to make sure that your emails are legally compliant, always make the unsubscribe button clear.
A/B Test
Finally, always test your emails before sending and test different variables with the same email to figure out what works best for you and your audience.
Email marketing may be relatively easy to do but making common mistakes can also be easier than you think.
