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email marketing mistakes

18 Worst Email Marketing Mistakes You Should Avoid In 2024

The number of emails sent and received per day this year is 333.2 billion. This number is expected to rise to 376.4 billion by 2025. Further, for every $1 spent, email marketing brings in an ROI of $46.

According to Statista 43% of people, access emails through mobile devices. All these make email one of the most efficient marketing channels

However, email marketers tend to commit certain common mistakes while coming up with and executing effective strategies. Further, they tend to follow digital marketing trends that at times result in email marketing mistakes

18 Worst Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2024

Here is a list of the most common but highly impactful email marketing mistakes. Alongside each of them, we’ve also discussed how you can avoid them. This guide will definitely help email marketers, both new and experienced. 

1. Using an outdated mailing list

using an outdated mailing list

The quality of your mailing list matters a lot. Over time, all businesses tend to collect email subscribers that simply delete, throw into the trash, never open, or click your emails.

A common email marketing mistake is not clearing off these. So, use an email validation solution or email batch verification service to ensure that all non-working email ids are deleted from the system. 

2. Not sending a welcome email

not sending a welcome email

Whenever a new lead or customer has subscribed to your email newsletters, you should immediately grab the opportunity to connect with him or her.

If you’re waiting to send him/her your regular newsletter, it would be a big mistake. So, set up your marketing automation software to send a welcome email as soon as someone subscribes to your newsletter. 

3. Sending irregular emails

sending irregular emails

Another prevalent email marketing mistake that many marketers often commit is sending emails only when there’s something to be shared. This can lead customers to forget your brand or unsubscribe as they don’t receive any emails from you. So, make it a point to send a few emails with high-quality content each month. 

4. Sending too many emails

sending too many emails

According to email marketing statistics, a person receives about 121 emails per day. This is the reason why users eventually unsubscribe from email newsletters that are too frequent and aren’t valuable to them.

So, send only a few emails that your customers will be happy to receive. You can also have a system in place where customers can let you know their preferences and frequency with respect to emails from you. 

5. Sending emails just for the sake of sending

sending emails just for the sake of sending

Brands and businesses also resort to sending emails just because they have to. And this can adversely affect their reputation as recipients won’t be interested in opening or clicking through those.

Come up with useful content for your audience by understanding their needs, doubts, etc. You can also creatively present one of your customer’s positive experiences with your brand. 

6. Sending emails at an improper time

improper emails sending time

Sending emails when your audience wouldn’t read it right away increases the risk of them not reading it at all. There is no hard and fast rule with regards to the right email sending times.

So, leverage your analytics to find the most suitable time. That is, the time of the day when most of your emails get opened. 

7. Not segmenting your email list

Email marketing stats say that segmented emails receive 14.64% more opens, 59.9% more clicks, and 18X more ROI. However, only 11% of email campaigns are segmented.

That is, only a small section of marketing emails sent are personalized to suit the preferences of the subscriber. So, make customer segmentation your highest priority. 

8. Being misleading

At times, brands can get misleading in the information they give to their email subscribers. For instance, you agreed to send a newsletter or promotional email every week, but keep sending it every day.

Or your subject line states that the email content has valuable info but opening it the subscriber sees only frustrating product promotions.

Or you promised to give them a discount upon subscribing to your emails, but didn’t. All these can negatively affect your brand reputation and make them unsubscribe you. So, be straightforward!

9. Writing poor subject lines 

Email subject lines have a profound effect on the open rates. Penning poor subject lines can lead to lower open rates. So, write short, sweet, professional sounding, to the point, and personalized subject lines. Also, avoid all caps. 

10. A mismatch between your email subject line and body

Often marketers make it a point to come up with captivating subject lines. However, if the email body is irrelevant to the subject line, you’d be disappointing your subscribers, leading to their unsubscription. So, ensure that the subject line matches your email content. 

11. Not making a provision for customer feedback

Another common blunder that many marketers make is including a “do not reply” message to their emails. This only would frustrate your customer who wouldn’t find a way to inquire more about the message you’ve delivered to them. So, allow users to communicate back to you through emails. 

12. Not being mobile-friendly

Today, many people use their smartphones and other mobile devices for checking their emails. If your email isn’t optimized for mobiles, then you’re losing potential opportunities and risking high unsubscription rates. So, make your emails mobile-friendly by all means. 

13. Failing to add a CTA button

Call to Action (CTA) buttons motivate people to take action in your favor. Not including may confuse the reader regarding the action you expect them to take. So, don’t forget to add a suitable CTA like “read more”, “buy now”, “take me to the product page”, “avail the discount”, “download the e-book”, etc.

14. Including poor-quality images

Images can attract your audience’s attention and spice up your message. However, don’t add images for the sake of adding them. Avoid using images that are too big, low-resolution, poorly formatted, irrelevant, and unappealing images. You can use online image editors like BeFunky, Canva, and Pixlr to create high quality and relevant images.

15. Adding too many stock photos and graphics 

While using images and graphics to spice up your main message is good, using too much irrelevant media content can have a negative effect. For, it alienates readers. Users may delete such messages or even consider them spam. 

16. Not running drip campaigns

You can use email autoresponders for many other marketing purposes than just sending welcome messages. Not setting up email drip campaigns in response to the different actions that your subscribers take will only make you miss out on numerous opportunities. 

17. Not checking messages for errors

Another worst email marketing mistake that marketers at times tend to commit is, not checking their email messages for errors before sending them.

Take the time to proofread your message to fix spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, etc., and refine it further. This can help maintain your brand reputation and increase conversion rates. 

18. Not tracking your campaigns

You shouldn’t neglect the response rate to each of your email marketing campaigns. For, it will help you know how well your marketing strategies are faring. So, keep tracking the performance of each campaign to facilitate continual improvement in your email marketing strategies.

Email Marketing Mistakes Infographic

email-marketing-mistakes-infographic

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Wrapping up

Sending your marketing emails to hundreds or thousands of subscribers can be embarrassing. Additionally, these can also cause irreparable damage to your brand’s reputation.

However, it’s not always easy to identify the mistakes that you’ve committed all this while. That’s why we’ve come up with this list of email marketing mistakes.

Now that you’ve got to know the worst but most common email marketing mistakes that brands and their marketers tend to make, do avoid them in your future campaigns.

This will help you come up with the best email marketing campaigns, which in turn will boost your reputation, brand affinity, conversions, sales, and revenue.

NotifyVisitors ‘s email marketing software is easy to use and offers a number of features to help you get started. Consider scheduling a free demo to know more about our software.

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Stella

Stella is a content writer at NotifyVisitors, a marketing automation software that helps businesses to expand their reach. Apart from writing, she enjoys reading and cooking.