There’s a lot you can accomplish with a good email marketing strategy— like increasing sales, building brand loyalty, and sharing important information with your regular and recurring customers.

Of course, the operative word here is good. For as effective as email marketing can be, it can also be deployed haphazardly, which will almost surely result in unsatisfactory results.

It’s important for marketers to know just how much potential email has, but also to be aware of some of the common pitfalls. In this post, we’ll highlight just a few of the most common email marketing blunders that we’ve observed over the years.

Sending Emails with a Lack of Strategy

The biggest mistake of all is simply sending out emails at random, without any unifying strategy to guide your efforts.

Invest in email marketing with the same strategic consideration you would give to your media budget, or your social media campaign. Think about which audience(s) you are trying to reach, what goals you are trying to achieve, and how you will measure your progress.

At enCOMPASS Agency, when we do email marketing on behalf of our clients, we’re scrupulous about everything from how many emails we send to what actions are we attempting to achieve from each campaign. These details make a big difference for the overall outcome, but before we can get so deep into the weeds, it’s always crucial to take a step back and develop a broader strategy.

Not Segmenting Your Subscriber List

Another common email marketing mistake is assuming you should send all of your emails to your entire email list, without breaking down the list into smaller segments.

Chances are, your email subscribers can be easily divided into a few basic categories… say, those who are current customers and those who are just leads. Your messaging to each of these groups is obviously going to be a little different.

You may have some scenarios, such as sharing a general update about your business, in which it makes sense to email en masse. More often than not, however, you are going to get better results if you break down your audience into segments, and tailor your messaging for each segment.

Failing at Your Subject Line

You could argue for subject lines as the most critical component of any marketing email; after all, your subject line is what persuades someone to actually open and read the contents of your message. In other words, if you have a subject line that fails in this basic persuasive function, your email is pretty much going to be a wasted effort.

Remember that people get tons of email every day, so you need to grab their attention. And yet, you want to do so without being so “salesy” that they immediately dismiss it as spam.

Typically, the best subject lines are fairly concise and to the point, and they convey the kind of value your reader will receive when they open and read.

Getting the Frequency Wrong

How many emails should you be sending? That’s one of the most common questions we get about email marketing, and while there’s not necessarily one right answer, there are plenty of wrong ones. You don’t want to send emails so infrequently that your customers forget you exist, but neither do you want to flood anyone’s inbox with superfluous or repetitive spam.

So where’s the middle ground? It varies from business to business, but at enCOMPASS, we often find that a two-email-per-month approach works well. This typically involves an initial email and then a “reminder” email for those who missed the content the first time around.

Your own email frequency may not be two/month exactly, but regardless, it’s important to be careful and intentional in how often you send emails.

Not Optimizing for Mobile Devices

It’s amazing how many marketing emails we see that are simply not optimized for mobile inboxes, whether because the text is too small, the formatting is off, or there are buttons and links that are difficult to click.

It’s crucial to think about how your audience members are actually going to be interacting with your emails, and much of the time, they’re going to be checking emails from their smartphone. Make sure you’re using an email marketing platform that allows you to optimize for all kinds of devices so that your emails offer a positive user experience at all times.

Avoiding Email Marketing Mistakes

There are a number of ways in which email marketing can veer off track, but remember: By starting with the right strategy, you can make certain everything you’re doing is in service of your marketing goals.

We would love to talk with you further about developing and implementing an email marketing strategy. To start that conversation, feel free to contact enCOMPASS Agency at your next opportunity.