5 Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

When done correctly,  email marketing can be one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience. Unlike social media or other channels, your message is the center of attention while reading. 

If you’re struggling with email marketing, now is the time to address some of the most common mistakes to get the true value out of your list. If you’re already doing relatively well, this guide is the perfect way to do a quick audit of your campaigns to uncover quick wins to boost your ROI. 

#1: Not taking email seriously

A lack of overall strategy is the most common and biggest mistake eCommerce companies are making today. For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect to see an ROI of $41.

If you aren’t emailing your subscribers consistently, you’re not converting customers as quickly and are leaving revenue on the table for your competitors. 

To understand why email marketing is essential, let’s take a look at the sales funnel.

At the top of the funnel, marketing channels such as PR are great for building awareness. Social Media is excellent at generating interest. 

These activities indirectly lead to sales over time.

Email is how you can nurture these leads and get them to convert.

How to fix it: Consider the role email currently is playing in your overall sales funnel. What percent of revenue is coming from email? What channels are more time-consuming, but don't perform as well? Prioritize and optimize your marketing mix by investing time and effort into channels with the most potential ROI. 

#2: Sending too many emails

Too much of a good thing isn’t always a good thing.

Judging from my daily inbox, many companies are on board with daily email sends. In fact, the average person who works in an office receives 121 emails per day. That’s more than 44,000 emails each year! 

The problem with this is that you will start to see the law of diminishing returns. 

At some point, the level of profits or benefits gained (output) is less than the amount of money or energy invested (inputs).

You can see if you’ve hit the law of diminishing returns on content messages if your open and click rates decrease over time. For promotional messages, a good gage is seeing if you see less revenue per email (RPE).

How to fix it: Start to test holdout groups to see if omitting email sends over some time still has the same or more revenue as the group receiving your normal email cadence.

If you are starting email marketing, an excellent way to avoid over emailing is to segment sends. An easy way to start segmenting is by emailing your most active email subscribers more often than others who haven’t clicked on one of your email addresses. 

#3: Not optimizing emails for mobile.

75% of people primarily use their mobile phones to check personal emails in the US.

To ignore the email experience on mobile means you’re missing out on a huge sales opportunity.

How to fix it: Adopt a mobile-first email design, meaning that your design considerations take into account being viewed on mobile the highest priority.

#4: No clear call to action.

Has anyone ever called you while you were busy and had nothing in particular to say? This event explains what happens when you send out an email without a specific call to action. 

You can send out the most well-crafted, thoughtfully designed email in the world. But if it’s missing a call to action, it will fall flat on its face. 

When crafting your email messages, always make sure to include at least one clear call to action (CTA). Keep in mind that this action doesn’t need to involve selling something. Maybe you want to pass along useful information or ask them a question. 

The bottom line is, don’t just reach out for the sake of reaching out. Have a clear purpose. 

How to fix it: Add at least one CTA, if not multiple, to every email campaign. This CTA should be aligned with your overall marketing and communications strategy, even if it doesn’t involve revenue generation.

#5: Mailing people who have unsubscribed.

Mailing email lists who have opted in to receive messages from you is the best way to ensure healthy open and click rates. If people have already opted out of receiving your emails, they’re not likely to open them and report your emails as spam. If you get too many spam complaints, email domains will start to blacklist all of your messages from entering inboxes, even if you are sending them to opt-in addresses.

Most importantly, in the US, ensuring you are mailing an opted-in list is mandatory due to the CAN-SPAM Act. If you’re emailing in California, you’re under further regulations due to the California Consumer Privacy Act. Internationally you are held to further rules regarding opt-in status and data privacy.

How to fix it: Ensure that your mailing list has explicitly opted in to receive email messages from your company. If an email lead has opted out from receiving messages from you, then ensure you aren’t emailing them going forward. 

Email performs exceptionally well, so it should be a top priority for your business.

Although many of the nuances can be challenging, this guide will make sure you’re addressing the most critical aspects of your campaigns. Identifying them is the first step.