“There’s no winning format for a successful email campaign,” some marketers would say. I don’t blame them because the internet is filled with do’s and don’ts of email marketing, but none of those guidelines make a difference.
Email users continue to grow every year. Infact, according to Statista, there are billions of people who are set to receive emails every day by the end of 2026.
Emails yield the highest return on investment (ROI), beating social media and video marketing by a whopping 40%. For every dollar spent on your email advertising, you are expected to make about $44 on average returns.
Amazing right?
As juicy as this sounds, it isn’t so easy. Email marketing is the most tactile form of marketing. Do it right, you get massive converts, sales, and returns, but if you do it wrong, you go straight to the spam folder, and your prospects end up clicking away.
So, how do you go about email marketing, and how do you fix your email marketing mistakes?
To answer your questions, we’ve interviewed startup founders, CEOs, and some advertising executives to list their email marketing pitfalls and how they fixed them. The answers to their questions are right down below.
Let’s dive right in.
4 Common Email Marketing Mistakes And How To Fix Em’
- Your email offers no value
Mathew Vernhout CEO of Email Karma
People often send out emails that have nothing tangible to offer. They go “click this,” “order this,” “do that,” and expect to close a $5000 deal right away magically. That’s so ridiculous. The biggest mistake ever is you trying to make a sale within an email. You expect one email to do an entire selling job.
“The best ads ask no one to buy. Picture the customer’s side of his service, always some service.”
Matthew Vernhout
Put so much effort into your email and offer some value to the customers. It can push them and get them excited into using your products. Build a relationship with your audience over time; that’s why it’s called an “email outreach.”
There’s no way you can burden your email to do a full-selling job for you and expect to get converts.
- Sending too few or too small emails
Elliot Ross, CEO of TaxiFOREmail
Nobody likes their inbox clogged with emails from retailers. More frequently than not, marketers make the mistake of “assumption.” They miscalculate the frequency in which subscribers want to hear from them thereby sending too few or too many emails.
According to a 2013 survey by Email Marketing Daily, 53% testified to getting lots of emails, and 44% said they get just the right touch.
To avoid making these mistakes, you can:
- Set up little questionnaires for customers after they subscribe to your newsletter to know their frequency preferences. Once you get the data, you segment your list appropriately.
- You can survey from time to time to see how your subscribers feel about your content/ emails.
Note: A recent study conducted by campaign monitor shows scheduling emails every two weeks is bullseye.
- Adding way too many links
Nate Goodman, Chief writer and founder of ThoughtReach
Include more than one CTA, add more links, blah blah blah. These are things you need to do to increase your click-through rate. Following this trend, your email contains 40 CTAs and 25 blinking “click me now” buttons.
In reality, all it does is activate the spam filters of most email marketing services to label your email as spam. Sometimes, this occurs as a result of ignorance, but sometimes, it’s out of laziness.
” They do not want to send out more emails, so one sent-out email does the work of 5.”
Nate Goodman, ThoughtReach
A clear CTA for your landing page should do the job effectively. It should tell them what you want them to do immediately. Do you want them to visit your site, subscribe to your blog, and check out your store? The clearer the CTA, the more likely you are to make a convert.
You can also include a clickable video thumbnail in your email, which can redirect to your landing page with your video on it.
- Removing/ hiding the unsubscribe button
Jessica Best M.D Data-driven Marketing at Barkley
Nothing is permanent, not even desires; this is why you need to strike when the iron is hot. Someone may subscribe to your email list today and decide to unsubscribe the next day.
Now, you can solve this problem in two ways:
First, You can make your unsubscribe button visible, making it easy for them to leave on their own accord, or you can decide to bury your unsubscribe button under piles of words.
For me, I only see one option here. The second one is barely an option. Hiding your unsubscribe button isn’t going to get you new leads; instead, it gets you more backlash from your customers (you don’t need that).
Also, don’t make it invisible like this.
Giving your list an opportunity to unsubscribe is a wise thing to do because you get to see those who are very invested in your product and will be a convert someday.
” I intentionally sent out emails asking subscribers who are not interested in my products or services to unsubscribe. This way, I clean up my mailing list and quit wasting my time pitching to people who will never convert”.
Jessica Best, Data driven Marketing
In Summary
Email marketing is a way to capture engaged leads, and you already have an idea of some common email marketing pitfalls and how to avoid them. Email marketing is the starting point of your conversation journey, but you won’t win till you cross the finish line.
After your prospect clicks open your email, you have to lead him down further through the conversation. And this cannot be complete without a place for them to “land” (landing page).
Goatomic email automation tool gives you access to a free landing page builder with lots of awesome templates. You can create and link your landing page to your email with ease (you can also publish it on the web if you want). This landing page with a detailed call to action can help you achieve your goals and send your customers to the finish line.