Email Marketing Mistakes and What to Do About Them

E-mail marketing is one of the most effective means of content marketing available to companies today.

In fact, it has been found to be 40% more effective than social media. Of course, that is if you are doing it right.

Every e-mail contact is either an existing customer or a potential one, and too many mistakes could lead them to click the “unsubscribe” button. You don’t want that! However, mistakes do happen. Unlike a blog post that can easily be fixed or updated, once an e-mail lands in a customer’s inbox there isn’t any way to take it back, but there still might be something you can do to save face and recover from an embarrassing faux pas.

Below are a few of the most common e-mail marketing mistakes and how to bounce back from them:

Typos and Grammar

Even the best writers make these mistakes.

That’s why it is important to have every e-mail you send carefully proofread before launching. Once it is delivered, you won’t be able to make any changes. When it comes to typographical and grammatical errors, it is imperative that you catch them beforehand. Here’s how:

• Hire a proofreader to check every e-mail before you send them.
• Schedule a delay. Oftentimes marketers are eager to send out their campaign or newsletter right away. They’ll click send and then take another look at their work only to find some glaring errors. If you schedule your e-mails to go out, say 15 minutes or an hour after you hit send, then you can still correct any errors before it is too late.
• You can also avoid this and other mistakes by sending yourself a test e-mail first.
• Don’t panic.  If you notice typos in your e-mail after it has gone out, your first impulse might be to resend a corrected version, or even send out another e-mail explaining the mistake. However, this tactic might only end up drawing more attention to your mistake while also annoying your customer with too many e-mails. Unless your error is exceptionally egregious, your best bet might be to just let it lie—and be extra careful in the future.

Broken Links

Putting in the wrong link or a broken link into an e-mail is particularly embarrassing.

After all, most of the reason you are sending an e-mail in the first place is to get them to click on the link and land on a particular page. If you act quickly, you should be able to set up a redirect that will send users to the desired page. Crisis averted!

Not Getting Enough Opens or Clicks

This mistake is more frustrating than anything else and can make you feel like your e-mail marketing efforts are all in vain.

If you have enough subscribers, you should consider A/B testing your e-mails. That is sending one of two different versions to your subscribers. The e-mails should have, essentially, the same purpose and content, but may have different images, subject lines, or calls to action.

You will be able to see which e-mail performed best, which should inform you what type of messaging resonates best with your audience.

Annoying Your Customers

The number one reason that people unsubscribe from e-mail newsletters is that they get too many e-mails.

If your unsubscribe numbers are climbing, you should reconsider how often you are sending e-mails. You might also include an option for customers to tell you how often they are willing to receive emails from you when they subscribe. Other reasons people unsubscribe include sending e-mails that look like spam or e-mails that are simply not relevant to their interests.

Recruit the Experts

If you find yourself hitting a wall when it comes to your e-mail marketing efforts, it might be time to hire some professional help. Fiverr is the best place to find freelancers to improve your e-mail marketing including design, implementation and content creation.