Email Marketing: Eight Common Email Marketing Mistakes You Need To Avoid

“Email marketing? Does it even work?”  It is a common response of people when they come across the term email marketing.

In the era where digital marketing is ruling and social media marketing has taken the center of the stage, marketing through email might sound ineffective or obsolete.

Email marketing is not dead! It still works wonderfully well for the businesses and brings the desired results.

The best thing about email marketing is its cost-effectiveness. Every business, irrespective of its size and nature can leverage it for marketing purposes. Moreover, email marketing promises a high return on investment. If a business spends $1 on its email marketing campaign, it can expect $42 as an average return.

Still not convinced?

Well, no problem!

Read the benefits of email marketing mentioned here to gear you up for incorporating emails as a part of your marketing campaigns.

Common Email Marketing Mistakes You Need To Avoid

Many businesses have adopted email strategy for marketing, yet they are struggling to get the benefit out of it.

Do you know why?

The reasons behind the ineffectiveness of their email strategy are some common mistakes that need to be avoided and adopt the best practices for email marketing.

The infra paragraphs will highlight 8 common email marketing mistakes that you need to avoid to make your email marketing successful. We have also mentioned some email marketing best practices to help you make your emails more effective.

1. Not Welcoming Your Subscribers

Your hard work paid off and a user just subscribed to your newsletter. You now have one more member on your long list of subscribers who’ll receive your emails.

Is adding a new person to your email list enough to make your email marketing effective?

Absolutely not!

If a business fails to send a welcome email to its subscribers, then it is missing out on a golden opportunity. The first email sent to the subscriber has the maximum chance to be opened and read than any other email.

Do you know why? Because when the subscriber enters his email and other details on your website and hits the sign-up button, he is highly engaged on the website. If you are quick to send him a welcome email, there is a good chance that the tab of your website might be open on his browser and he will take the action that you want him to.

Furthermore, by sending him a welcome message instantly, he will remember who you are and why he subscribed to your email list.

Remember the famous saying: The first impression is the last?

Your first email will tell the subscribers about the tone of your email. Make sure to make a good impression so the subscribers do not regret joining your email list.

A welcome email should have the following 3 characteristics to make it more effective and appealing to the subscriber.

A warm welcome to your reader for joining the list.

Tell your readers who you are, what you do, and what benefits are in store for them.

Prepare them for what will follow next.

2. Failure To Include A Clear CTA

Without even a speck of doubt, we understand how important your business is for you and you cannot stop thinking about it. But, your subscribers have different things on their minds. Unlike you, they don’t think about your website all the time.

To remind them and send them to your website, you need a clear and compelling call to action button. Without effective CTAs your email will have no purpose and subscribers will have no clue about their next course of action.

You don’t want to send an email that doesn’t drive any action, right? The entire plan of your email strategy will fail if you do not direct the customers on what to do next.

When you are sending an email to your customer, even if it’s just an announcement of a new collection that you have launched, or partnered up with some influencer, always include a call-to-action.

Following are some suggestions to make a great call-to-action in your emails:

a) Display It Prominently

Don’t let your CTAs blend with the rest of the content of your email. They must be displayed prominently so that it is easy for your subscribers to find and act upon them. Use a bright color to make it catchy and stand out from the rest of the email.

b) Be Persuasive

Using common words like Buy Now, Learn More, etc. is never going to convince your subscriber to act upon them.

Be smart about your word choices. Your words should convince the reader that pressing the button will be in their favor. You can also create urgency to make your subscribers hurry up and take the action.

c) Don’t Bombard Your Emails With CTAs

Ideally, one email should have one CTA. Adding too many CTAs becomes annoying for the reader and he takes no action on any CTA.

If you have two important announcements, let’s say one is for a sale and the other is about a partnership with a welfare organization, then draft two separate emails and add the respective CTAs therein.

d) Proofread

Nothing is going to make you look more unprofessional than an email that has spelling and grammatical errors. Imagine what impact ‘Byu Now’ will have on your customers about your business?

Before sending your messages, make sure to proofread the copy of CTAs and the rest of the content of the email.

3. Failing To Maintain Optimum Email Frequency

Another mistake that can impede the effectiveness of your email marketing is the failure to optimize your email frequency.

If you send too many emails or hardly send any, in both cases your subscriber will unsubscribe from your list.

An average person receives around 120 emails daily. In such a situation it is normal for customers to feel irritated if they have useless emails in their inbox.

To prevent annoying the customers from your emails, make sure you do not bombard their inboxes with your emails. Send them emails that will benefit them and not annoy them.

If a person signed up for your newsletter, then it means he has an interest in the content that you share on your website. Keep him interested in your brand by sending the content he loves to read. For instance, a person subscribed to your email list because you promised to keep him updated with fashion trends and styling tips. If you send the customer an email about how lawn fabric is made, then what do you think he will do with that email? Move it to trash.

Along with sending the right content make sure that you do not sound over promotional. Because let’s face it, your customers are not going to shop from you every time you send them an email. Keep promotional emails limited to once a week.

Also, do not take a long break after sending an email or two. Your subscriber will forget about you and your brand if you go on a long break of not sending the emails.

4. Not Segmenting Emails

Every customer has different interests and needs. This means creating one type of content to target all your subscribers is not a very promising method.

The biggest benefit of email marketing over social media marketing is that a business can create customized messages for separate groups of their audience. In social media marketing, one post is created for all types of customers.

To make your email marketing more effective and to increase your conversions, divide your subscriber into different segments according to their gender, age, interests, buying behavior, etc.

For instance, a business deals in clothing for both genders and ages. Sending an email to a man about the lipstick shades that go well with the summer outfits is useless and not going to bring any results.

To make your email strategy successful divide your subscriber into different groups and then design your email content according to their needs.

You can divide your list by considering the following factors:

• Area
• Age
• Gender
• Previous Purchases 
• Likes and Interests

Moreover, you can also divide your list into two main groups according to the content they would like to receive. Not all subscribers will be interested in your newsletter, the majority of them would like an update about a sale or discount voucher.

Send your segmented groups the emails they’ll be pleased to open.

5. Unresponsive To Mobile Devices

Emails are designed and sent from the computer. A business will ensure that everything appears and works properly on desktop devices, but what about the people who will view your email on their smartphones?

Before you press the send button to make your emails land in your subscribers’ inbox, make sure that it is displaying perfectly on mobile devices. The best practice for this is to send out a test email to yourself and a few members of your team. Check if everything is fine and readable. If there is something wrong you can correct it before you send out emails to your customers.

Even if your email is displaying perfectly on mobile devices, there are other factors that you must keep in mind for mobile-users.

Firstly, avoid writing long blocks of texts. A few lines on the computer are displayed on the mobile devices as 10-12 lines. If you have written endless lines then a mobile user-would get irritated to continuously scroll his screen to read the complete email.

Secondly, don’t be too dependent on images that you insert in your email. Some email apps don’t display the images. If a business has designed its entire email on the inserted picture, then there are very thin chances of response from the subscriber’s end if his email app has disabled the apps.

We don’t mean to imply that you should refrain from using the pictures in your emails, no!

You have to be smart about using pictures. Even if your subscribers do not receive the pictures, there is still a way to inform them what the image is about. Thanks to the alt tag of HTML for this purpose. Instead of using random words in this tag, make sure that you use a proper phrase to describe what your image is about.

6. Emails Appearing Unprofessional

Online users are very cautious. They will not like to receive emails from a website that looks unsafe or far from being professionals.

To make your users assure of the fact that you are professional in your field, your emails should exhibit the same professionalism.

If your emails are plain and not compelling, a subscriber will never pay heed to them. All your hopes of increasing your conversions will dissolve as salt does in water. People do not like to be a part of an email list if the business sends them amateurish emails.

It is therefore imperative that you create the professional and interesting email content. Use the following tips to make your content look professional just like your business.

a) Proofread Your Email

As discussed earlier, grammatical and spelling errors will harm the image of your business. Before sending out emails to your customer read them thoroughly and if you spot any errors, rectify them immediately before you send them to your customers.

b) Avoid Google And Stock Images

If you insert the pictures taken from Google or Stock in your emails, then it is better to send the emails without adding any image at all. If your user has seen the image a thousand times before then it will not hold their attention.

Use unique images, preferably designed by you so that it is new for your readers.

c) Don’t Add Attachments

Do you download the attachments that you receive from an eCommerce email? Then don’t expect your customers to download the attachments.

Emails that contain attachments don’t look professional; they appear spammy. Only send PDF attachments when the user signed-up for it. The better practice would be to include the link of the PDF so that your user doesn’t have to download the entire file on their devices.

d) Avoid Using Slangs And Abusive Language

Gen Z has created its language to communicate on the internet. However, you must not forget that your customers are not only Gen Z. Some people have no clue about the short forms and endless abbreviations that are used on the internet. If you use the terms like ASAP, TYSM, LOL, etc. then a huge audience will delete your email.

Similarly, avoid using slang and abusive language. Your customers will not entertain such emails that contain curse words or substandard language.

7. Using Common Subject Lines And Sales Promotional Language

Your email marketing will only work if your subscribers open your email and read what’s inside. To make them open their emails, you have to make sure that the subject line is catchy and sounds useful.

If your subject lines are the same as all the other businesses, then your email is just going to stay unopened with the 100s of other emails in the inbox. Just as your product or service is unique, so should your subject line be. Make your emails special for the readers so that they look forward to receiving your email and reading its content.

We have listed a few tips that will help you to make your email sound interesting and useful to your readers.

a) Personalize Your Emails

With eCommerce email marketing, you can add a personal touch to your emails. This benefit is not available in any other marketing channel.

Instead of writing your email like a newspaper ad try to use a conversing tone. Write your emails as if you are talking to your friend.

b) Focus On Their Benefit

Do not write long ballads about how remarkable your product is. Your readers have no interest in knowing the features of your products. What they are interested in is how your products will be useful to them.

Talk about how your products are the answer to their problems. By focusing on them instead of your products, your readers will be more likely to take action.

c) Clear And Purposeful Subject Lines

The trick of using clickbait or creating a thrill in subject lines was a very successful trick to make the people open their emails. Unfortunately, this trick no longer works. If anything it does is irritating the customers.

Be very clear about the content of your email in your subject line. Try to make your subject line persuasive without sounding over-promotional.

8. Not Prioritizing Sign-Ups

All your email marketing efforts will go in complete vain if you do not have enough subscribers. Not all the people who receive your email will run to your website to make a purchase. But by having a long list, the chances of more people coming to your website increases.

It is completely understandable that you cannot have 1000s of subscribers overnight. Your list will take time to grow, but that doesn’t mean it should stop you from doing your part to increase sign-ups.

Make the CTA of sign-up prominent on your homepage. Promise the users that they will receive remarkable content, sale announcements, and discounts in return for their sign-up.

It is difficult to convince your customers to share their emails with you if you have nothing to offer in return. Offer them a discount code or a free gift coupon for sharing their email addresses.

Conclusion

Contrary to popular belief – email marketing is alive and thriving with all its might. To spruce up, your marketing campaigns, including a concrete email marketing strategy.

Email marketing will lose all its benefits if not done correctly. But you don’t have to worry anymore!

Now that you are aware of the mistakes and their remedial measures, your email marketing will be a huge success.

Good Luck!

Author Bio:

Ricky Hayes is the Co-Founder and Head of Marketing at Debutify – free Shopify theme, helping dropshippers build high-converting stores in minutes. He is a passionate entrepreneur running multiple businesses, marketing agencies, and mentoring programs.