4 Deadly Email Marketing Mistakes To Avoid

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When it comes to online marketing email remains to be one of the most powerful channels for reaching out to your customers. And unlike SEO, email marketing allows companies large or small, to drive masses amounts of targeted traffic to their products and services, thus creating positive leads and sales instantly.

However amongst the many mistakes to avoid when doing email marketing, today I want to share with you 4 of them, which I strongly believe if not avoided can have costly consequences for your company. Let’s take a look.

4 Deadly Email Marketing Mistakes To Avoid

4 Deadly Mistakes Of Email Marketing

1. Avoid using misleading headline titles and deceptive subject lines

Nothing comes across spammier than receiving a marketing message through email that uses this unethical tactic.

Using misleading headline titles and deceptive subject lines, in hope to increase your open rate should be avoided at all costs. If anything this tactic will cause an immense amount of confusion with your recipients and increase opt-out rate.

Also using this tactic won’t only give your organization a really shady spammy appearance, but your company could also face some hefty penalties for spamming. Always check the CAN-SPAM compliance guide if in doubt.

2. Avoid coming across too sales-like and not providing ‘value’

Email marketing enables businesses to advertise their marketing message, offers etc to their recipients broadly and effectively. However as a business you should make every effort to make your recipients fully aware of exactly what your marketing message is about.

Whilst it’s good to recommend products and services you should always strive to provide, or combine adding ‘value’ and a ‘solution to a problem’.

3. Avoid not telling your recipients where you’re located

Ask yourself this, would you purchase products or services, or even put trust into a company, where you didn’t know their location? No would be the answer I’m betting. Always ensure that your email marketing message includes a valid postal address to where you or your business is located.

4. Avoid not giving the option to opt-out

My final tip is to ensure that what ever message you send out to your recipients, always provide them with the option to opt-out, and when they do, honor their decision regardless of their reasons. You’re more likely to keep your recipient on your list if they know they can opt out should they wish to.

So let’s recap -

  1. Don’t use misleading headline titles or deceptive subject lines
  2. Think about providing value and how your content will help your readers, customers solve problems
  3. Add a postal address, let your recipients know where you’re based
  4. Always give the option of opting out!

Conclusion

So there you have it folks, my top 4 deadly mistakes to avoid when doing ethical email marketing. My advice would be to avoid using any email marketing software’s that you are unsure about, but instead try and use a more reputable online email service provider such as AWeber or Mailchimp.

OK, let me know your thoughts and whether you have any additional tips and suggestions you want to add to the list above.

As usual, have an awesome week what ever you’re doing :)

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Image courtest of Photobucket user: jhaworth

  • http://emfastincome.com Enstine Muki

    Hi Fabrizio,
    I used to think it’s easy with email marketing but with time, I found out that a lot has to be learned. In my early days, I used to be blind to some of these mistakes you have outlined here.

    I remember one autoresponder that will allow you to manually insert an unsubscription link. That was a big weakness because often, users will deliberately not add this link to their mails. As you mentioned, it’s a mistake.

    I hope this post helps so many of us starting this business online. Thanks for nice read this Tuesday morning ;)

    • http://www.magnet4marketing.net Fabrizio Van Marciano

      Hey Enstine thanks for stopping by and I’m so glad you enjoyed reading through the post.

      I can also speak from experience with making mistakes with email marketing, I guess it’s all part of the learning curve. I started email marketing around 2004 and as you say there is a lot to learn about doing it the right way, especially with things changing constantly and new regulations, new laws and new technology coming into light.

      Have a great week mate :)

  • http://www.soloadverts.com Adrian Jock

    1,2 and 4 are indeed deadly mistakes but No#3 (not telling the location) … is FAR from being a deadly mistake. I’m publishing email newsletters since 2001. Since that year I’ve been subscribed to tons of newsletters. I NEVER cared about the location of the sender. That’s the last thing someone cares. People subscribe to newsletters to solve their problems, have fun, find out new things, etc. They don’t care about your location. Right now I didn’t check where you’re located and frankly I don’t care. [In addition, finding your location posted somewhere is not a guarantee that is real, so why bother?] I don’t know about others ;-) but I don’t base my buying (or other) decisions on your skin color, location, and other such things…

    • http://www.magnet4marketing.net Fabrizio Van Marciano

      Hi Adrian thanks for your comment mate I really appreciate your time reading the post.

      You raise some very interesting points some, of which I agree with. You’re right, I’m signed up to quite a few emails myself and to be honest I don’t usually care where the sender’s located, if the information is valuable than nothing else matters right?

      However I can’t say that I would feel 100% comfortable in buying something from an organization who didn’t reveal where they were doing business from, on their website and in their emails (having a physical address).

      But I guess at the end of the day we cannot speak for absolutely everyone, and typically if anyone did have an issue with an email that didn’t reveal a physical address, it can ring alarm bells as far as the CAN-SPAM commercial email compliance guidelines are concerned, which is why a lot of reputable email marketing service providers make it compulsory to display a physical postal address when sending ‘commercial emails’. Personally I’d rather be safe than sorry.

      Have a great week :)

      • http://www.adrianjock.com Adrian Jock

        Hi again, Fabrizio :) You should install a plugin that lets us know that there are replies to our comments. Help your visitors and you’ll help yourself ;-)

        Reading your reply actually I see that you agree 100% with my point LOL – which in a few words is this: the missing location is a mistake indeed but it’s far from being a deadly one.

        BTW, when it comes to purchases, indeed SOMETIMES it may cause the sender to lose some sales but you missed something: a lot of marketers don’t sell their own stuff. You can’t buy anything directly from them… Affiliate marketing ;-) In that case… even if you buy something anyway you shouldn’t care about sender’s location. You should read carefully the salesletter (belonging to SOMEONE ELSE, not to email’s sender) and maybe check the location of the company selling the stuff you plan to buy :)

        A great week to you too :-)

  • http://www.meegoh.com Farrell John Conejos

    Hey Fabrizio,

    The number 3 mistake that needs to be avoided is some what logical since we just cannot trust someone that easily. With a proper information regarding who do you send or who sends the emails, information about the recipient’s should be present. Nevertheless, it can be a scam that you are entering. These tips can generally help not only beginners but season veterans as well since it stands a reminder to avoid doing these things.

  • http://webincomejournal.com Chadrack

    Hi Fabrizio,

    You’ve truly highlighted the top email marketing mistakes. That point about misleading headlines is a “killer”. It can actually harm all of your efforts if you are not careful.

    I’ve heard some advocate that you use a headline that make them open your emails.But the fact is, if your content are not worth it, you will only be putting stumbling blocks on your way to success!

    Thanks for sharing.

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  • http://www.bizsugar.com Heather Stone

    Hi Fabrizio,
    Great post. Yes, e-mail marketing remains hugely effective, but, of course, it can only bring success if you use it correctly. I’d say a rule of thumb is to treat your prospects with respect. This means offering op out opportunities, providing new customers with real solutions not just vague promises and generally being as transparent as possible. Thanks for sharing this post with the BizSugar community.

    • http://www.magnet4marketing.net Fabrizio Van Marciano

      Hi Heather, thanks so much for reading and commenting. Glad you enjoyed the tips, I couldn’t agree more with your point of being ‘transparent’ :)