The 5 Most Common Mistakes Email Marketers Make

I receive many emails, and I study much of what I get. In marketing, staying curious and noticing what attracts your attention and what misses the mark is essential. There's a ton to be learned from all that spam.

The 5 Most Common Mistakes of Email Marketers

I’ve compiled a list of the most common things I see across industries. How many of these common mistakes are you making in your business emails?

1. Your email is coming from a big box.
   Subject and sender are the two biggest reasons people open your emails. People won't open it if you're using a generic contact name. Make the sender as human (sounding) as possible, unless your brand is why they would open it.

2. Not explaining who you are.
   Most people get many webinar invites and spam. Sometimes, it's difficult to tell which is which. If your business has a generic name that is not industry-specific, it can be challenging to understand who it’s coming from. For instance, I received an email invite to a “must-attend” webinar to help with my “dream path.” The business name had the term "mastermind" in it. Was it for me as a business owner, a chamber member, or in one of my self-improvement phases? I guessed it was the latter. It turns out—I realized once I missed the webinar, and the replay showed up in my inbox—that it was for my college-bound son. I missed that.If you want to successfully build a relationship over email, assume they don't know you and give your recipient a clue as to which part of their life you’re involved in.
   The trend these days is casual, but that makes people feel crazy when they can't put a name with the business, especially when the company shares its name with a dozen out there.

3. Not using personalization.
   Come on. Mail merge technology has been around since DOS days. It’s okay to use a first name in a subject line. Believe it or not, it does make people pay attention.

4. Not cleaning your database.
   There are some email marketers that I get 2-3 emails from every time they have an offer. Why? Because I receive ads or emails from them asking me to sign up for a webinar or a freebie, and I don't realize which email they have, so I accidentally give them a second (or third) one. That's on me. But they can periodically run dupe checks on their database, especially if they've collected something other than a name and email.Sometimes, I even get duplicate emails when I've given them the same email because they're treating each freebie or event as a new list of names. Some of us are return visitors.

   Don’t make that mistake. It messes with your open rates. Clean your database for dupes.

5. Not making the unsubscribe button visible.
   All mass emails need an easy way to unsubscribe. Otherwise, people will get frustrated and hit the spam button, affecting your send rating. If you make people hunt for it, they will choose the easiest route, which will also be the most unpleasant for you.

So, do these mistakes sound familiar? Are you guilty? It's easy to overlook these common mistakes when getting your message out. Just remember, email is about connections. Anything you can do to improve that will help you become a better email marketer.