7 Email Marketing Mistakes You Must Avoid
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Email marketing can be your most effective marketing tool. But there are many email marketing mistakes you may be making without even knowing it. In this blog post, I’ll discuss some common email marketing mistakes many marketers make, and how you can avoid them. Hopefully, you aren’t making any of those mistakes. But if you are, you can now avoid them and fix them.
1. Using a Free Autoresponder
You don’t want to trust a free autoresponder for the important task of list building. If you are serious about internet marketing, you’ll want to pay for a quality, reliable email service provider.
Free autoresponders like MailChimp’s free version will add advertising to your messages. You don’t want that if you want to make money with your website or blog.
Some newbies think that they can start with a free autoresponder until they’ve made some money, and later switch to a better one. But you’ll lose time when changing providers and setting up your autoresponder messages at a different service. Also, when you import your list to a new email service provider, your subscribers may have to resubscribe to the new service and you’ll lose subscribers.
Some of the most popular email automation systems providers today include ConvertKit, GetResponse, and Aweber. You can read my review of the Best Email Marketing Tools here.
2. Email Marketing Mistake: Subject Lines That Suck
Most people look at the subject line of an email message before seeing who the sender is. If they don’t like the subject line, they won’t open your email.
The first thing you need to get right when it comes to email marketing is the subject line. If you can’t get your subscribers to open your emails, it won’t matter how good your email messages are.
Here are some tips to get you started.
Keep it short. Many people check their email on mobile devices, so make your subject lines short and snappy! You want your readers to see the entire subject line.
Avoid “spammy” words that will trigger spam filters.
Personalize your email. Mentioning your subscribers’ first names in your emails still works.
Pique their curiosity. Your subject lines need to be enticing without telling the whole story. it’s hard to ignore subject lines that sound intriguing or only tell part of the story.
Create a swipe file. The best tip when it comes to crafting compelling subject lines is to keep a swipe file of examples that got you to open the email.
Put more thought into creating subject lines. Spend time writing your email subject lines and see what type of subject lines get good open rates.
3. Lack of Consistency in Your Email Marketing
Once you start an email schedule, you’ll want to stick with it. You don’t want your subscribers to get used to receiving your informative emails every week, and then stop getting them.
Decide how often you want to send your emails out, and use an email automation tool (e.g. ConvertKit, Aweber, or GetResponse) to stick with your schedule.
Having an email marketing planner helps to get your message out regularly.
Check out this Free Weekly Newsletter Planner – 2 Years’ Worth of Email. Get 2 years’ worth of strategically planned weekly newsletter topics, your subscribers will love. Get the newsletter planner here.
4. Writing Email Messages from Scratch
Beginning online marketers are often challenged when it comes to writing effective emails and knowing the most effective sequences, what information to send, when to engage, when to offer freebies, and when to sell.
Is writing email copy a challenge for you? If your emails aren’t engaging or aren’t generating sales, you may want to use high-converting email swipes or templates. Email swipe files are a collection of top-performing email messages. Quality email samples or email swipes can help you write better emails faster and easier.
You can use them as a template, a guideline, a starting point, or inspiration for writing successful email messages.
No clue what to say to your list?
Get 950+ email swipes to help you write high-converting email messages faster and easier.
You can quickly tweak and customize them to fit your audience, brand, topic, and product. Customizing and letting your personality shine through will give you the best results and make your message unique.
After customizing some of your favorite swipes, you can use them to create your own email templates to save even more time!
Check out my 950+ email swipes to help you write high-converting email messages faster and easier.
5. Email Marketing Mistake: Not Segmenting Your List
You don’t want to send the same messages to everyone. You must send targeted messages to your audience to build a relationship with them.
If you want to provide subscribers with the most relevant content possible, you have to segment that list of contacts. Email list segmentation is breaking up your email subscriber list into different groups based on unique sets of data.
Today’s sophisticated email marketing automation software such as ConvertKit, GetResponse, and Aweber can collect a lot of information about your visitors’ behavior.
You can use that information to split your list into very targeted segments. This will allow you to send very targeted messages. And your targeted messages will increase open rates, engagement, and conversion.
6. Lack of Personalization in Your Email Marketing
Even when using automation software, you can give your messages a personal touch. People respond very well to personalization in email messages, and that includes subject lines.
If you use their name or name their title, they’re going to be more likely to open your email message.
7. No Call-To-Action
Okay, you now have a nice number of subscribers on your list who actually enjoy and want to engage with your emails.
Your readers are more than happy to take that next step. But your email messages don’t tell them what you want them to do.
You must provide a clear call to action and tell the reader exactly what you want them to do.
Do you want them to buy something, sign up for free trial software, give you feedback, or join an event?
Tell them what to do!
Here are some examples of calls to action.
Heck yeah! Save My Seat!
Snag this deal for a limited time only!
Join me in an hour! Pop on over and join the conversation.
Hurry! Save 54% on all courses. This birthday sale ends on (day) at (time). Use this coupon code to save $54% off any of our courses but only for 48 hours.
Hurry! This special offer is only available until (day) (time) Order Now! (use e countdown timer).
Get (free trial software) free for 2 months. Just $9.99/month after. Get started now.
Click here to buy and download this course right now!
We are happy to answer any questions you may have. Just click on the “contact” button.
Read more about Lead Magnet CTA Do’s and Don’ts
Check out more examples of calls to action here.
When using a call to action, you also want to use action words. You can read my blog post about power words here.
Stop Making These Email Marketing Mistakes!
If you avoid these email marketing mistakes, email can be your most effective marketing tool.
Do you need lead magnets to build your list?
Recommended Reading
7 Email Marketing Mistakes You Need to Avoid
Recommended Reading
7 Email Marketing Mistakes You Need to Avoid
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