The 6 Absolute Worst Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Whether you work for a big corporation, or run a small, family business, email marketing is an unrivaled way to captivate your audience, create brand loyalty, and drive conversions. But mastering it isn’t just about sending messages – it also requires a strategy, and avoiding a select list of common email marketing mistakes that can make or break your success. 

So, what email marketing mistakes should be avoided? This article will tackle six of the very worst email marketing mistakes – and how to easily avoid them. With just a bit of extra care in each of these areas, you can ensure that your email marketing efforts are a success, delivering the best possible results for your business.

Why It’s Important to Avoid Email Marketing Mistakes

While the field of digital marketing is crowded and complex, email marketing stands out as a unique opportunity to connect personally and directly with your audience in a highly targeted, strategic way. Not only that, but it’s fairly easy to implement, and offers an astonishing return on investment. 

Indeed, the benefits of effective email marketing are vast, including higher email open rates, a growing list of quality subscribers, increased brand and loyalty, and, importantly, more conversions and business opportunities. 

Before we get started: if you want to get your email marketing up and running but don’t know where to begin, then join our free, six-day email marketing course. It will give you all the tools you need to create highly successful email campaigns with ease – and to start implementing the tips we’ll be sharing here.

What Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

1. Not Using High-Converting Sign-Up Forms

Your email list is the backbone of your email marketing efforts. So one of the top email marketing mistakes you can make is not taking the extra steps to optimize how you acquire subscribers. That’s right: if your sign-up forms aren’t designed to convert, you could be missing out on heaps of potential leads. So how to make this happen? Let’s dive in.

Gather Essential Info

Most sign-up forms typically ask for just an email address and, occasionally, a first name. While this simple approach can increase submission rates, it may not help you qualify leads effectively, especially if your goal is to focus on high-quality prospects. The key is to balance the number of questions with what’s essential for your business to determine whether a lead is a good fit.

For example, an interior designer might ask for project details or budget range, while an online store may only need an email. By gathering the right information from the start, you’ll save time and concentrate on leads that are more likely to convert. That said, don’t ask for extra information unless you really need it – unnecessary fields can reduce sign-ups.

Use a Double Opt-in

While a single opt-in might seem faster and more logical, implementing a double opt-in can actually help you build a higher-quality email list. What is a double opt-in? During this second step, users verify their subscription through a confirmation email. By doing so, you as a business can be extra certain that these subscribers legitimately want to hear from you. This is an especially good thing because it not only increases engagement (because subscribers look forward to your emails!) but also helps reduce spam complaints and bounce rates.

Leverage Lead Magnets

A lead magnet, such as a downloadable resource, eBook, or exclusive content, is among the top lead generation tactics to incentivize users to sign up for your list. People are far more likely to subscribe when they receive something of value in return. Just be sure that your lead magnet aligns with both what you offer and with your target audience’s needs and interests.

2. Not Focusing on a High-Quality List, and Segmentation

One of the most common mistakes in email marketing is focusing on list quantity rather than its quality. Indeed, a smaller, well-segmented list is often way more effective than a large, untargeted one. So when it comes time to improve your list quality, it’s essential to prioritize list hygiene and segmentation.

Clean Your List Regularly

An outdated or unengaged list can harm your deliverability rates and skew your campaign metrics due to unopened, undelivered emails, and spam complaints. By cleaning your list regularly, you can avoid these pitfalls, removing inactive subscribers, reducing bounce rates and improving engagement. 

Go through your list once every three to six months to identify users who haven’t opened or clicked on your emails for an extended period, and consider sending them a re-engagement campaign. If they still don’t respond, it’s time to remove them from your list. 

Segment Your List and Send Targeted Emails

Segmentation is one of the most powerful tools in email marketing. By dividing your list based on demographics, interests, or behaviors, you can send more relevant content to specific groups of people. For example, you might wish to send one message to loyal customers (with a discount thanking them for their business), and a different one to new customers (with a unique offer that entices them to buy). These personalized emails lead to higher open rates, better engagement, and ultimately, more conversions. 

Want to become an expert on growing a high-quality email list? Read our guide on how to build your email list.

3. Not Developing Strategic Subject Lines

Your subject line is the first thing your subscribers see, and it’s often the deciding factor in whether your email gets opened or sent straight to the trash bin. With a little extra work, though, you can increase open rates – and hopefully conversions.

Generate Intrigue

Subject lines that pique curiosity tend to attract more opens – it makes it hard(er) to resist the click! The idea is to avoid revealing too much in the subject line – leave a little to the imagination so that the subscriber feels compelled to click to learn more. That said, ensure that the content inside your email aligns with the intrigue you’re building; misleading subject lines can lead to unsubscribes or spam complaints.

Create a Sense of Urgency

Urgency is a powerful motivator in any type of marketing, and that goes for email marketing just the same. Subject lines that include phrases like “only a few left” or “last chance” can encourage users to take immediate action. Urgency taps into the fear of missing out, pushing subscribers to engage with your email quickly.

Align with Email Content

Your subject line should reflect the content of your email. Subscribers don’t like bait-and-switch tactics, so make sure you’re delivering what you promise in the subject line. So be cautious not to over promise, or to mislead. Clarity in your subject line builds trust and credibility with your audience.

4. Not Using Strong Calls to Action

A great email is virtually worthless without a clear, actionable next step – your email essentially becomes a dead end. So it’s not surprising that one of the most detrimental email marketing mistakes marketers make is neglecting to include effective calls to action (CTAs) in their emails.

Make It Action Oriented

Your CTA should clearly instruct the reader on what to do next. Use action-oriented language that prompts them to take immediate action, such as “Shop Now,” “Download Today,” or “Claim Your Offer.” Avoid vague CTAs like “Click Here” that don’t convey what the recipient is signing up for.

Make it Specific

A generic call to action may fail to capture attention. Be as specific as possible. Instead of “Get Started,” try “Start Your Free Trial” or “Download Your Free Guide.” Specificity makes the offer more compelling and gives the recipient a better understanding of what they will gain.

Noticeable and Strategically Placed

Your CTA should be easy to spot, whether you’re using a button or a hyperlink. It’s often a good idea to include your CTA multiple times in the email—once near the beginning, once in the middle, and once at the end. Strategic placement ensures that even if subscribers don’t read the entire email, they can still easily take action.

So much more goes into creating the perfect email. If you’d like to learn more, read our comprehensive article on how to write marketing emails that people will read.

5. Not Having a Content Calendar

Successful email marketing requires a well-thought-out plan, and one of the most common email marketing mistakes is failing to create a content calendar. Without a schedule, your emails may become inconsistent or irrelevant, leading to decreased engagement. On the flip side, a well-organized schedule will help you stay on top of email marketing, and to better be able to align your marketing with business objectives.

Plan Content Types Strategically

Your emails should include a variety of content types to not only keep your subscribers engaged, but to strategically build your relationship with the customer, and to build your credibility as a brand. Planning ahead allows you to have a bird’s-eye view of what you intend to send out, thus allowing you to balance promotional content with other types of content, such as resources or educational material. A content calendar also helps to make sure that your emails stay fresh and diverse, offering value to your subscribers without overwhelming them with constant sales pitches.

Schedule Content for Consistency and Ideal Frequency

Consistency is key in email marketing. Whether you send emails weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, a content calendar helps you maintain a consistent cadence. It also ensures that your email frequency aligns with your audience’s preferences. Too few emails can lead to disengagement, while too many can overwhelm your subscribers, increasing your unsubscribe rates.

6. Not Optimizing with Goals and Metrics

Finally, one of the biggest mistakes is not setting clear goals or tracking metrics. Without data-driven insights, it’s impossible to gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns or optimize them for future success – and this is truly where the real email marketing magic happens.

Identify Goals and Metrics

Before launching a campaign, identify what success looks like. Whether your goal is to increase open rates, drive traffic to your website, or boost sales, having a clear objective will guide your strategy. Next, determine which metrics will help you measure progress toward that goal. Maybe you want to drive sign-ups for a certain course, or increase the sales of a new product, or perhaps simply to grow your list. Whatever your goal, identifying success metrics can help you get there. Common email marketing metrics include open rates, click-to-open rates, conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates – and you can learn more about all of them in our article on email marketing metrics.

Track and Optimize

You’ve defined your goals and metrics, now you must track them. Monitoring performance after each email send allows you to adjust your email strategy from campaign to campaign. If your open rates are low, consider tweaking your subject lines. If your click-through rates are underwhelming, review your CTA or content. If unsubscribe rates or going up, check your content and clean your list. Regular analysis and optimization are essential to long-term success.

Run A/B Tests

A/B testing is a fantastic way to optimize your emails and continually improve their success. It allows you to experiment with and improve different email elements, such as subject lines, copy, CTAs, and design. 

Do this by dividing one of your email segments and sending two different versions of the same email to the two different groups – one version to one group, the other to the other group. It’s important to only change one thing in that email: the element you’ve decided to test (a subject line, CTA, etc). After sending, compare the results from the two emails to determine which one performed better – from there, optimize your campaigns accordingly. The beauty here is that testing helps you make data-driven decisions and improve your results indefinitely.

Avoid Common Email Marketing Mistakes for Lasting Success

Email marketing remains one of the most powerful channels to engage and convert customers, but only if executed smartly. By avoiding these six common email marketing mistakes – poor sign-up forms, ignoring list quality and segmentation, weak subject lines, ineffective CTAs, a lack of content planning, and failing to optimize with metrics – you can elevate your email marketing strategy and drive better results for your business.

By refining your approach, focusing on the needs of your audience, and consistently optimizing your efforts, you can turn email marketing into a reliable and effective part of your overall digital marketing strategy.

Now that you know exactly what to do and not do when it comes to email marketing, it’s time to put everything in motion. Go from email marketing beginner to expert in just six days: join our FREE, six-day email marketing course. 

And if you’re keen to get your email marketing efforts started without all the hassle, sign up for SiteGround Email Marketing – it’s super easy to use, and 80% off!