Big email marketing mistakes to avoid

Email marketing is still one of the most prevalent forms of marketing in pretty much every industry, especially as a means of retaining customers and reinforcing your brand.

However, many people find that no matter how killer the campaign is, companies are finding it hard to turn subscribers into customers. An email marketer’s job is not done when they have the email address of the potential customer, this is just the beginning.

This guide highlights some of the main email marketing mistakes to avoid and is brought to you by Phrasee, an AI marketing company specialising in email language and social media ad copy.

Getting off on the wrong foot

Every new email subscriber should be introduced early on with a welcome email. The first email you send is probably the most read email they will receive – this is because it is sent when the reader is most engaged with you after they subscribed and you are still fresh in their minds.

Take it upon yourself to send out an email which explains who you are and what that subscriber can expect from you, as soon as someone signs up. This welcome email should set the tone of all the emails which are to follow. If you can add an additional hook, even better. Consider competitions, other interesting articles on the site and polls.

Not meeting the reader’s expectation

If your marketing emails are not meeting the reader’s expectations, the reader is simply going to unsubscribe. This may also be the case if you use sales-heavy language or jargon.

Similarly, you may find subscribers will unsubscribe if you do not write in a professional fashion, failing to use correct spelling, grammar and using stock images. The key here is finding the right balance.

This doesn’t just go for the bold copy of the email, but also in terms of the email frequency. If you had promised a weekly email, but you are failing to meet this or you hate sending out daily emails, you are certainly not meeting your reader’s expectations.

Another way you can fail to meet the expectations of your readers is why veering off topic. If you readers are expecting to hear about the latest best deals on holidays but you send one on your favourite cat memes, this is not what the reader has signed up.

It is also important not to bombard your readers with too many emails, as they are far less likely to open them, let alone engage with them. Again, you need to find the balance between daily, weekly and monthly emails – as too many emails is a turn-off.

Related Reading – 4 Super Simple Steps To Create An Email List

Forgetting those mobile users

A large majority of your readers will consume their email on their mobile devices, especially because 60% of online search queries start via mobile. Therefore, if you are not working to optimise your emails for mobile consumption, you are making a rather expensive mistake.

To format your emails for mobile, you should make sure the design is simple and clean. The images and text should all be scaled well and easy to see on a smaller screen. Keep the content single column and use images no wider than 600 pixels and keep information above the fold to get straight to the point and avoid the user having to do more scrolling down than necessary.