How to Screw Up Your Email Marketing in 6 Easy Steps

Here we’ve outlined some common mistakes that can easily derail your email marketing campaigns. If you’re looking for ROI from email marketing, don’t follow these steps.

• Sketchy Subject Lines
  For anyone who’s ever clicked a news headline only to be redirected to an unrelated website, this one’s for you. Click-bait in a subject line might get attention, but it will also get an exasperated sigh and eye roll. If you’re lucky, the reader will simply delete the email. If not, you’re likely to get marked as spam and unsubscribed to.
  
  Sure, it can be fun creating subject lines that you think will get attention. But always make sure you’re thinking of the actual content of the email and its purpose when you write that all-important line of text. Nobody likes being led one place while expecting another. Don’t disappoint your audience.
• Secret Senders
  “Oh, I have a new message from Noreply? How exciting!” – said no one ever. If you want to create a relationship with people, you’ll have to divulge some information. Not a lot, just enough to develop some trust. People don’t like talking to walls, and if you’re not providing a legitimate sender, your readers might end up giving you the silent treatment.
• Self-Serving Content
  Think about the last really meaningful conversation you had with somebody. Whether it was a coworker, spouse, or old friend, it’s very likely the conversation involved both of you. Even when only one person is talking, they are actively engaging the other person by drawing on some commonality.
  
  Emails should work similarly. Although you’re not aiming for an actual conversation with back and forth replies, you should always be engaging the other party. Figure out the purpose of your email, and then determine how this information will benefit the recipient. Craft the content with this goal in mind – getting those benefits across to readers. If you do this well enough, they’ll naturally want to “respond.” Your Call to Action (CTA) is inherently self-serving, but as long as the main email is deemed valuable enough to proceed, you should receive a decent conversion.
• No Clear Focus
  You don’t want an email to appear too self-serving, but your content should have some focus. If you’re sending an email newsletter, then it’s understandable to have multiple topics and pieces of content for readers to browse. But if you’re sending an email as part of a nurturing campaign or just to touch base, make sure there’s some strategy behind it.
  
  Don’t overwhelm readers with too much information that will distract them from taking action. There’s a definite balance you’ll have to find between being helpful versus bothersome, but as long as you’ve outlined a goal and created content around that, you’re on the right track.
• Not Segmenting Lists
  This can lead to the whole “nobody likes talking a wall” situation again, except this time, you’d be the one facing the bricks. For example, if you’re a plastic injection molder, would you want to read an email about a new metal stamping technique? Probably not.
  
  Research is by far the most important part of a successful marketing campaign. Knowing your audience will allow you to tailor content that fits their needs, leading to a higher rate of engagement. It’s more than the simple personalization of “Hi [customer name],” this is about crafting the entire email around a specific group of people and their needs. If your company offers more than one product for more than one industry, it’s crucial to segment your lists according to each crowd.
• Forgetting to Test
  You’ve figured out a good topic, you’ve thought of a catchy subject line, and you’ve officially written the best email of your career. And then BAM! Right after you hit “Send,” you see a glaring error. Or worse, you don’t see anything at all because your images suddenly aren’t appearing.
  
  Always test your emails! Make sure the formatting is correct, make sure the text is correct, and make sure everything appears correctly in different browsers and screen sizes. Every email takes time, patience, skill, and a little bit of luck. Don’t waste all of that on a simple mistake that could have been avoided with one simple test.

Email marketing is definitely an acquired skill, and there’s still no real formula for success. But hopefully by avoiding these missteps, you’ll be on your way to an effective campaign. Unless you really do want to screw up your email marketing, in which case you should do each of the things listed above.

Want to learn even more about email marketing? Discover the 6 different types of marketing emails you can send, as well as when to use each one.