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We’ve all been subject to irrelevant emails and wonder how they even arrived in our inbox.  Whether you try and find out where they came from, or just automatically delete/unsubscribe this isn’t the position you want your emails to ever be in.  Obviously, you don’t send your emails just to be deleted, so making sure you’re sending relevant and timely messages to your audience is the key to success for your email campaigns.  Here are a few common email marketing mistakes to avoid to you can crush it in the inbox.

Sending too Often

I recently subscribed to a company’s newsletter after reading a blog post.  I thought it would be beneficial to get their information delivered to me as they published it since their blog post was useful.  Sadly, I was wrong.

The next couple days I received over 9 emails from the company and many of them had duplicate content in them.  Just because I subscribed, doesn’t mean I want to know every little thing your company does every single day of the week.  Relax a little, and don’t inundate your audience with too much content too soon.

Not Sending Enough

On the other hand, if the company had completely neglected to send me any email I would have been a little put off.  When someone subscribes to receive updates via email, don’t ignore them.  They’re showing that they care about the content and topics your brand is involved with, and it could very well lead to a great opportunity for your business.

This has other consequences as well.  If you don’t send frequently enough, when you do decide to email your list your contacts might be confused as to who you are and why you’re emailing them.  This increases the chances of unsubscribes and even worse, spam complaints.

Complicated Unsubscribing Process

It should be as easy to opt out of emails as it is to opt in.  Back to my recent experience with the over-sender, when I made the only click (on the unsubscribe link) I was brought to a page that said I was unsubscribed.  A couple hours later, I got another email from them.

Now I was really getting annoyed.  I clicked the unsubscribe link (again) and was brought to the same page but my skepticism led me to click around the page.  Once I got out of the page pop-up that said I was unsubscribed, I was faced with the number of lists they had automatically subscribed me too because I generously provided them with my email address.

In total, I was on 6 of their lists, 2 of which were set to send me daily updates.  Even worse, I wasn’t even subscribed from the lists that I tried to subscribe to until I manually removed my email from this page.

This is exactly what you don’t want to treat the people who want to unsubscribe from your email messages.  Not only do I never want to hear from them again, but they completely ignored the actions I took to politely say “no thanks”.  They’ve lost my business forever.

Sending Without Testing

This is one of the most important email marketing mistakes to avoid.  Not only will it get a second, third, or even better a fourth set of eyes on your message, but it will ensure your message is easily digestible and provides relevant value to your audience.

Developing marketing emails isn’t like typing something up in Word.  It isn’t even quite like developing a website.  Each email client (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.) renders your email differently so it’s important to test and make sure your message is delivered consistently wherever your contacts read them.

Nonresponsive Emails

Two thirds of emails are read on either smartphones or tablets so if your emails aren’t optimized for mobile readers your campaigns could suffer the consequences.  As email clients make changes to the way they render your message, email is becoming more about delivering a micro-site directly to the inbox. 

Failing to capture the attention of your mobile subscribers will result in people ignoring your emails and give them the perception that your business isn’t with the times.  Mobility is an expectation that customers have and for good reason.  As marketers, it’s our job to react and adapt to the market as it changes, and email marketing is no different.

Ineffective Segmentation

This is another extremely important email mistake to be certain to avoid in your campaigns.  If you’ve ever gotten an email and thought “Why did I get this?”, then you understand the importance of effectively segmenting your database.

Whether you implement automated email techniques or segment based on customer lifecycle stage, proper segmentation ensures you’re email marketing campaigns are relevant and valuable to your contacts.

Email is Only Images

I see this happen way too often.  Not only does it reduce the agility of your email, depending on your recipient’s image settings your message might not get displayed at all.  It also increases the chances of accidental clicks on your emails.  While clicks are great (and what you should aim to get), if they immediately bounce from your landing page then your email metrics will provide an inaccurate representation of the engagement they produce.

In my opinion, it also screams laziness.  It focuses on the product or service you’re pushing on the landing page instead of really understanding how it can help the customer.  Put simply, it’s impersonal, and when I get these emails I know a couple thousand other people got the same thing. 

Emails Lacking Personality

Email is the most personal digital marketing channel out there.  The capabilities to include personality and specifics about each individual’s current situation are unlimited, yet millions of emails are sent every day that have absolutely no personality.  Strictly business. 

For instance, when companies send emails that only consist of images, they remove the option to include merge fields (personalization tokens such as first name, last name, address, etc.) in the message entirely.

Stats back this up too.  Subject lines that include the first name of the recipient received a higher open rate than those that didn’t.  People like to see their name.  It’s one of those psychological quirks we can’t help about ourselves.  Give your email marketing personality and make it about your recipients by including specifics about them to increase overall brand engagement.

There a handful of other email marketing mistakes to avoid, but these are just a few that stick out to me.  If you find yourself guilty of these mistakes, don’t worry.  We all are at some point.  If you consistently find yourself committing these, it might be time to consider an email marketing agency.  They’ll be able to establish a strong email strategy aligned with your business goals.

At the end of the day, email is all about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time in the right way.  There are a lot of things that go into effective email marketing but when your campaigns are focused on delivering your contact’s value in a way that supports your business goals, you’ll start to see the dramatic impacts to your bottom line email is known for.