15 Email Marketing Mistakes You Wish Not To Make
April 20th, 2017 | by Ravi Chahar || 6 Comments |
This is an era where marketers, bloggers, and business owners try their best to leverage their email list to get more exposure.
But there are many common email marketing mistakes which can ruin your business and personal brand.
In the past few years, people have embraced their one on one strategies but the concept of email marketing is still intimidating to many.
Why is that so? Have you ever thought if your email newsletter can stand? Are you getting more leads or just wasting your time in configuring the messages?
In this article, you will learn about the email marketing mistakes which should be avoided at any cost.
Email Marketing : What Are The Most Common Mistakes You Make
Every time you read about driving more traffic to your blog, building an email list is always considered as one of the major actions.
No doubt that if you do it right, you can get a lot of exposure but there are some mistakes which can ruin everything.
#1. You Haven’t Started It Yet
Millions of blogs are running on the world wide web but only a few standout. People target the search engine by optimizing their content for SEO which brings some traffic.
But you can’t get those people back. 80% of the people come from Google don’t return to your website.
With the help of your email newsletter, you can bring them back which may finally turn out to be the loyal visitors of your website.
If you haven’t started, think about it again.
#2. You Use WordPress Plugins To Gather Email Addresses
WordPress directory consists thousands of plugins and most of the users rely on them. Many people even start building their email list using any of the plugins.
This is one of the biggest email marketing mistakes. Adding a checkbox below your comment section using Jetpack isn’t email marketing.
You can’t send a custom email to your subscribers. To accomplish that, you can use the email service providers like ConvertKit, Aweber, GetResponse etc.
You would also be interested in a complete guide for adding MailChimp form to your website.
#3. Too Many Subscription Boxes
Some people are too excited to gather as many people as they can by placing the opt-in form everywhere.
If you’re using a subscription form on the sidebar, footer, below post, show a popup, the landing page etc. Well, think about it.
Are you forcing your readers or giving a chance to win a lottery? This is all about user experience. One in the sidebar and another below the post are more than enough.
If people would want to get your newsletter, they would sign up.
#4. Not Using Efficient Headline
It’s believing that around 75% of the people make their mind just after reading the headline of an email. Most of the people don’t even open it.
It’s because the headline doesn’t appeal to them. Whether it’s for a blog post or an email newsletter, the headline should be catchy.
Try to write a headline which can allure your readers just with one glance.
#5. Spelling Mistakes
Nothing can be more annoying than an email with numerous of spelling mistakes. It directly affects your brand and you get unsubscription as the reward.
It’s about showing your skills which can mesmerize your readers. Don’t forget that email marketing is a one to one direct lead.
The more you show your perfection, the more you get the exposure.
#6. Targeting The Product, Not The Readers
Money making blogging is at its verge where people bombard with product promotion emails to their subscribers.
It shows an adverse effect on their email list and branding. People sign up to receive some informative content, not all those useless product promotions emails.
It’s all about your readers. How would you stand in this competitive world if your brand gets ruined?
#7. Not Taking Required Actions
People aren’t fond of working too much so they just place a sign-up form on their website and wait to increase the list.
Don’t you think there should much more to do? You should definitely build an email marketing strategy to get more subscribers.
Do some research, apply an A/B test to embrace your skills.
#8. You Think Email Marketing And WordPress Subscription Are The Same
Well, this is one of the email marketing mistakes most of the users are making. They think that more users in their WordPress website are the part of their email list.
They should know the difference between blog subscription and email newsletter subscription. If you’re using any plugin like Jetpack then transfer your email list from Jetpack to MailChimp or any other email service provider.
#9. Too Many Call To Action Buttons
Have you ever received an email having many CTA buttons for signing up for their another email list or for a product promotion?
It’s not people expect from you. CTA buttons are great but overdo can make your email list stagnant. It wouldn’t convert as you expect.
Don’t add more than one button.
#1o. You Send A Love Letter
Email marketing is for your professional use. Many people use it as if they’re writing a love letter consisting everything in 1000 of words.
Do you think people have time to read long emails? Well, think again.
Your subscribers need something easy to read with direct information. Don’t bore them by adding many lines. Get to the point.
#11. Only Images
It’s true that people like the visual content but it doesn’t mean you add many images and videos in your email.
You can’t make anyone understand the content you provide without the text. People like to read and want the efficient number of images.
And the biggest problem occurs when your readers open your email in their mobile. Images aren’t so mobile-friendly.
#12. Too Many Emails
Most of the famous websites publish every day. It doesn’t mean they send an email every day. There should be a perfect schedule.
Though it’s the matter of personal choice but still, twice a week can work fine. It would neither impact your brand nor irritate your readers.
#13. No Message Coordination
I receive many emails every day and most of them make one of the deadliest email marketing mistakes of overlapping the message.
When you write two lines in the starting and repeated the same thing, again and again, isn’t people expect.
It’s important to explain your perspective but not in an unstructured manner.
#14. Collecting Emails From Comments
How can you expect someone to read your emails if they didn’t sign up for your newsletter? Most of the time people think that gathering email addresses from blog comments is a great idea.
Trust me, this is the worst thing you can ever do. It directly impacts the trust factor. How can your readers trust you if you can’t respect their privacy?
#15. Login Is Required To Unsubscribe
An email marketing strategy should focus on providing the best user experience. Even an unsubscription process should be easy.
Some people set the login as a must to do, step before unsubscribing. You should know, not everyone is good with remembering the password.
It can really annoy your readers.
Are You Making Any of The Email Marketing Mistakes
This is just a common list, there are many other email marketing mistakes which can totally be a disaster to your business and personal brand.
Personally, sending many emails and collecting email addresses from comments are the worst mistakes anyone can make.
It’s about sending the helping guides not about promoting an affiliate program. You can share your own products but not every time.
Email marketing can be a great idea to leverage your personal brand. Embrace your skills and use it effectively. What are the email marketing mistakes you have made?
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Hi Ravi,
A very detailed and useful post for those who either don’t understand what Email Marketing is or who undervalue it and just do it for formality.
It doesn’t even cost a dime with Free Email Service providers like MailChimp and MailerLite.
I agree with all your points. Great job!
Hey Shafi,
MailChimp can really give you a plus if you design the email layout your own. But the mistakes mentioned in this article can ruin your email marketing campaign
I hope you’re not making any.
Thanks for stopping by.
Have a great day.
~Ravi
Hi Ravi,
Great post to enhance your knowledge on email marketing. Email marketing is the best way for direct conversation with audience and customers. Building a huge list of emails of your regular audience, may be useful to drive more traffic. All the mistakes are worth to know, before making mistakes. Couldn’t stop myself laughing reading the mistake, you send a love letter ? LOL. Yeah, it the words used in writing should be easy relevant.
Yeah, I’m against of collecting emails from comments. This is very bad idea to someone’s private emails as a email marketing. It would be even more fun, if you suggest me some free tools for email marketing. Thanks.
With best wishes ?
– Ravi.
Hey Ravi,
Email marketing is the direct approach and you can’t expect to get appreciated by everyone for your words. It can only happen if you craft an email which is focused only on the quality content.
People have enough emails in their inbox and they don’t want any extra love letter.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
~Ravi
Hi Ravi,
Great tips, I agree with you that it’s never too soon to start building your email list. I started mine as soon as my blog went live even though I didn’t have any traffic.
It’s better to start early so you can learn the ins and outs of email marketing. One of the mistakes I made was adding to many options on my opt-ins.
I agree that you should only have one option on your opt-ins. This makes it easy for someone to know whether or not they want to subscribe to your offer.
If your offer doesn’t match their needs, then that’s cool. You can’t serve everyone. This is something that I struggled with at first.
Thanks for sharing these tips with us, I know that they will help so many bloggers who are just getting started online.
Have a great day ?
Susan
Hey Susan,
I used to be the person who never focused on collecting emails during my starting days. But once I revamped my blog, I added the newsletter subscription box in the sidebar which is enough.
You wouldn’t want to confuse your readers with multiple options. Yeah, you can’t make everyone happy. Just try to provide the best you can.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
~Ravi