1. Neglecting your contact database.
There’s no point in taking the time to craft marketing emails in the first place if you don’t have a database of quality contact to send them to.
Some effective strategies to build a solid contact database include importing your contacts from LinkedIn and including an email newsletter signup on your website.
Whatever you do, never purchase an email list. It’s not worth the money, and the people you’re emailing probably won’t open your emails as they won’t know who you are.
2. Not having a game plan.
If you want to get results with your email marketing efforts, you need to have a strategy in place. A best practice is to create a content calendar so that you can address relevant topics and stick to a consistent schedule for sending out your emails.
3. Not setting aside enough time to write quality emails.
Your email content does not need to be long–approximately 250 words is a great target for length. However, since the content that you share will be a direct reflection of your brand, you’ll want to make sure that you have enough time to put together a quality email.
4. Using bland subject lines.
According to a study, 50 percent of consumers said that an email’s subject line is what compels them to open emails. With that being said, if you’re assigning boring subject lines to your emails, there’s a low probability that they’re actually being read.
Be sure to check out our blog post about how to write winning subject lines for your email marketing campaigns.
5. Sending emails that look unprofessional.
Unprofessional emails come in a wide range, from content that contains typos and spelling errors to the use of low quality images. With so much email content to compete with, you can bet that your audience is going to be judgmental. Therefore, the fewer unprofessional mistakes that you make, the better.
6. Not sending emails at the optimal time.
The optimal time to send an email can obviously vary depending on your audience, and this is something that you’ll want to test out. Once you determine the best day(s) and time(s) to send your marketing emails, be sure to stick to a steady cadence, such as every Tuesday at 9am.
7. Ignoring analytics.
One of the most powerful aspects of email marketing is that you have access to analytics to tell you how you are actually performing. Paying attention to how your email marketing campaigns are performing can allow you to make necessary tweaks along the way to get results.
8. Not scrubbing your contact list.
Two metrics that you need to be regularly watching are your bounce rate and your spam score. If you don’t regularly scrub your list and remove bad email addresses, your spam score will increase, causing the bulk of your emails to be categorized as spam.
By avoiding these top 8 email marketing mistakes, you’ll set yourself up for success and experience positive results from your efforts.