Inevitably, if you send many emails, some of your email marketing will end up in the junk pile. Mail Chimp has great advice, so you don’t make Email marketing mistakes that make you look spammy.
Using spammy phrases
Click Here, Once in a lifetime opportunity, FREE, Buy Now, Money back guarantee, Why Pay More, Urgent Matter — Spam Assassin assigns points to these types of phrases each time they are in an email. Multiple uses of these phrases add up, and when the email reaches a “spam score” it is sent to the junk pile.
Using all caps or multiple explanation points
All caps are yelling, and multiple explanation points are a flag that it might be a BUY NOW!!!!! type of spam email.
Using just an image instead of text
Some people know spam filters do not read images, so they put text in an image. However, spam filters are smart enough to realize that, and will frequently spam emails that are just one image.
Converting a Word file to HTML for email
Spam filters hate these emails since the code is sloppy. Many times you will find them ending up in the junk pile.
Sending a “test” to multiple recipients
Sending a “test” to multiple recipients, especially within the same company can mark you as a spammer. The word “test” signals the firewall that this email doesn’t have substance and might have been computer generated.
Sending an email to multiple recipients without a subject line
Firewalls have no choice but to conclude that emails without subject lines are spam, and these will end up in the junk pile. Next time you are sending out mass emails, check for these 6 things – or just know that many of your emails found a home in the junk pile.
Tips for improving your email marketing campaign
- For serious email marketing use one of the ready-made email marketing tools.
- Don’t forget to ask for approval (subscription) before sending your newsletters.
- Provide users with an easy way to subscribe and unsubscribe from your newsletter.
- Welcome new subscribers and thank them for subscribing to your newsletter.
- Make sure you fill out the ‘From’ and ‘Subject’ fields with your company name in order to remind your subscribers whom the email is from. This will help them to identify you, and your email will not end up in spam.
- Make sure you have an appealing title, otherwise your subscribers might decide to delete your email before opening it.
- An excessive number of rejected emails may be a sign that your mailing list is outdated. Make sure you maintain regular contact with your subscribers.
- Stimulate subscriptions by offering additional benefits. Don’t just sell — offer discounts, promotions, educational content.
- If you have subscribers from different time zones, include TimeWarp option so that all your readers get their emails at the same time according to their time zone.
- Design a newsletter to meet your visual identity (logo, colors, font…).
- Make a ‘mobile friendly’ newsletter using Responsible design.
- Replace classic ‘submit‘, ‘read‘, ‘send‘ links with a strong call to action links. They can be in the form of text or image.
- Always offer your newsletter in HTML and plain text format.
- Include social functionalities.
- Regularly test your newsletter before sending (From and Subject fields, links, grammatical errors, different browsers, email clients…).
- Analyze the ‘Unsubscribe rate‘ daily, weekly, monthly.
- Survey your subscribers, especially those who unsubscribe from the list to find out their reasons and improve your email marketing campaigns.
- Regularly check your newsletter statistics (openings, clicks…).
- Specify the best day and time for sending newsletters. For example, you can schedule your newsletters to be send on every Wednesday morning between 8:00 and 9:00 am.
Email outperforms all other promotional and communication channels because it occupies maximum attention of the person who is reading it. In addition, it enables you to maintain constant contact with your existing customers by sending new services or product offers, promotions, and discounts.
For this reason, it is very important that you invest a decent amount of time in tweaking your email marketing campaign till perfection. Be sure to avoid these 6 mistakes and follow the tips outlined above.
- Will Emergence Of Google Plus Ads Sweep Off Facebook Advertising? - January 27, 2014
- 6 Email Marketing Mistakes That Make You Look Spammy - January 8, 2014
Completely agree with these email marketing mistakes.
I also feel that these are the most common mistakes which most of the email marketers make. Sending emails with boring subject is very much common mistake.
I never open any email which don’t attract my eyes. I always ignore or delete such emails instantly.
Email marketers should understand that nobody wants to waste their time in reading boring emails. If you really want to convert them then you must have to send emails with having eye catchy, attractive and promising subject line. Because It is the only line which readers read first.
So taking care of it can improve your skills.
I am glad that you have listed all the major email marketing mistakes here so that we can learn them and can avoid them. Thanks for sharing it with us. 😀