Common Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2024 + [ how to fix them]

Although email marketing is an incredibly effective and valuable channel for digital marketers to keep their clients updated, it's important to understand that mistakes can sometimes happen. Once you click the send button, it's out of your hands. There is no other possible method to edit them in real time. But it's how you handle any mistake that you make.

• According to a Statista report, there are 4.48 billion users as of 2024, which means that currently, 50% of the world's population uses email. 

• According to a Litmus report, email marketing generates an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent.

In this blog, we will talk about the top 12 common email marketing mistakes to avoid and how to fix them to regain the trust of your users. 

Mistake 1: Writing poor subject lines

A subject line is the first text recipients see after your name when an email reaches their inbox, it's your subscriber's first impression of the email. A poor or dull subject line can cause an email to be deleted or ignored by users.

Solution:

• Keep it brief (6-10 words total)

• Consider personalizing it by using their first name or location

• Captures readers' curiosity, and makes them interested in the email content.

• Be clear about your offer, so they know the benefit of opening your email

Mistake 2: Poorly segmenting your email list

If you were having a party, you wouldn't want to invite someone you knew wouldn't want to come, right? The same is true when emailing someone who would not care about the content. Segmentation of the email list involves dividing subscribers into smaller groups based on various standards.

Segmented email lists show 50% higher CTR than untargeted email campaigns.

Solution:

Divide your email list by:

• Geography: location, population, language, climate, and environment.

• Psychographic characteristics: lifestyles, values, and hobbies

• Demographics: Age, occupation, income, gender, and family status

• Behavioral data: Purchasing, spending, and browsing habits, loyalty to a brand, and engagement with a website

Mistake 3: Personalization mistakes

Personalization is a strong strategy in email marketing. Errors in personalization can cause emails to seem unprofessional and unserious. Lack of personalization or over-personalization leads to being marked as spam or keeping customers away.

Solution:

• Review and check data and email before sending.

• Determine a balance in personalization, don't over-personalize.

• Suggestions based on browsing history, such as cart abandonment email or recent website visit.

Mistake 4: Not sending a welcome email

A welcome email is the first image with subscribers who just subscribed. Not welcoming new subscribers can lead to losing potential customers.

Solution:

• Set up an automated email campaign to immediately thank first-time subscribers or customers who have purchased a product.

Mistake 5: Sending too many emails

Never shoot your subscribers with too many emails, make sure subscribers don't feel devastated with emails. Too many emails can increase high unsubscribe rate and spam rate. 

Solution:

• Apply Quality over quantity
• Consider Frequency:
  1. less than 500: Send an email one time a month
  2. 500-10,000: Send an email once a week
  3. 10,000 or more: Send an email twice a week

Mistake 6: Ignoring mobile users

Who's not using a mobile device to check emails? Everyone does!

Ignoring mobile users means missing a big chunk of email users, leading to a high unsubscribe rate, lower engagement, and a negative impact on deliverability.

Solution:

• Mobile responsive emails

• Use short subject lines and preheader

• Compress images, large font size, and buttons

Mistake 7: Not having a clear Call-to-action (CTA)

Use clear and concise calls to action to educate users on what the next step to take is. Using weak and undefined CTAs can conduct a low click-to-open rate (CTOR).

Solution:

• Use prominent call to action

• Write about an activity that your subscribers want to take

Mistake 8: Emails with typos or mistakes 

Let's imagine you've sent a link to a blog from a website in an email and the URL contains a typo. How do you fix this mistake?

Solution:

• Redirect: Set up a redirect so that the incorrect URL sends subscribers to the correct URL.

• Triple-check: Always triple-check emails before sending them, even the most experienced marketers make mistakes.

Mistake 9: Ignoring email analytics

Another common mistake made by email marketers is not consistently analyzing email performance. Reviewing email metrics regularly helps you build more targeted and personalized emails, make informed decisions, and build successful email campaigns.

Solution:

• Constantly check email metrics - open rate, click-through rate, and conversions.

• Use insights to improve your campaign performance

• Identify trends and patterns to understand subscriber behavior.

Mistake 10: Improper timing in sending emails

Optimal sending time + maximum impact. Emails sent at the wrong time lead to lower engagement and high unsubscribers rates.

Solution:

• Know when your audience most likely uses email

• Determine the time zone of your subscribers

• Experiment using A/B testing to find when users engage most with emails

Mistake 11: Sending too many images in emails

Adding too many images can cause emails to load slowly, display issues, and be marked as spam. Most email client software considers heavy images as spam.

Solution:

• Use a combination of images and text.

• Compress email images to reduce load time

• Utilize image alt text to make sure email clients understand the image content.

• If visuals are limited, consider using GIFs instead.

Mistake 12: Buying email lists

Buying an email list helps you increase your audience; in fact, it can badly damage your entire email marketing campaign. Purchased lists often include outdated, uninterested, or fake email addresses, which can poorly harm the reputation and cause low deliverability.

Solution:

• Grow your email list organically using website popups, social media, and paid advertising.

• Encouraged users to subscribe by offering discounts, and valuable content.

• Apply quality over quantity.

Finalize

So there you have it. Now you know the common email marketing mistakes to avoid and how to fix these issues.

It's time to start your mistake-free email marketing and get game-changer results by providing valuable, targeted, and personalized content to your subscribers.