5 Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2014

While there are tons of email marketing mistakes to avoid, there are a still a handful that people really need some guidance when it comes to proper execution. Customer acquisition through email has quadrupled over the past four years, which truly showcases just how effective email marketing is for small businesses. However, these benefits will only be seen if easily avoidable mistakes are understood and corrected.

Now this isn’t to say that the email marketing efforts you’re making today are for not, but there are many things that you might not even realize are mistakes. When you’re a small business owner trying to run your company but also do the marketing through do-it-yourself (DIY) tools, there’s plenty of room for human error. Those DIY tools are only as good as the person using them.

So what can you do to make sure you’re seeing the benefits of email marketing in your business? Here are 5 email marketing mistakes to avoid that are keeping you from really getting benefit from your efforts:

1) Bad Subject Lines

I’ve written before about bad email subject lines and the basic concept is this: subject lines are your first impression to every email recipient. They need to be enticing enough to not give away the whole email, short enough that they fit on the screen of all devices (phones & tablets), and clear enough that people know why you’re sending an email. You also have to worry about using words and phrases that mark you as SPAM, as well as other pitfalls that can get you into trouble.

2) Poor Frequency

There are two ways you can make this mistake. Maybe you got all excited and sent out two email newsletters in your first month and then completely fell off. Or, maybe you have an email automation tool from your parent company that provides you with terrible “stock” email content and you send those out three times a week. Either way, have a consistent enough cadence that your audience isn’t surprised to see an email from you, but relaxed enough that they don’t start to question if you’re sleeping at night.

3) Sending Without Testing

Just because an email you put together looks good in the preview window, doesn’t mean that it’s going to look good for all of your recipients. If you’re using a free platform like Gmail or Yahoo, try sending it to yourself and close friends first. Check it on mobile devices, tablets, and PC’s. If you’re using a DIY tool, hopefully they know what they’re doing. And if you’re still not sure what to do, you can always ask us for some help too.

4) No Calls-to-Action (CTA’s)

After all this work of building a gorgeous email campaign, don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten to give your readers a chance to connect with you? CTA’s are cues for your readers to click on and get them to do something for you. It could be something as simple as a clickable link or possibly a graphic that readers click to get something. Whatever they are, make sure you include them so you can generate more business but don’t get carried away either.

5) Boring and Irrelevant Content

And lastly, if the email content is boring, people aren’t going to want to finish reading or possibly ever read again. That’s troubling too because unlike social media, email marketing is a way to directly reach your audiences on a personal basis with very little effort. When you write your emails, you want to have great content. Content marketing is the stuff that people are interested to read about, look forward to receiving, and is most definitely not a sales pitch. Write about topics that are adjacent to your industry but without being self-promotional. We can help with that too.

With all of these idea fresh in your minds, take five minutes and go check to see if your email marketing campaigns are falling victim to these mistakes. And if you would rather we did this for you, you know where to reach us.