22 Infallible Ideas to Ruin Your Email Marketing

And today – something for the tough guys. How to create annoying and ineffective email campaign? Below you will find proven and widely used practices that can not only ruin one particular campaign, but also devastate your deliverability and recipient’s trust for years! Generally, be afraid of customers and don’t talk to them too much.

Let’s go!

List building and spamming

1. The more, the merrier: send emails even every day, because user can easily forget you in the flood of stimuli she gets every day. Don’t miss the moment of her purchase readiness! When she sees your messages each time she opens her inbox, you build a real connection and increase brand awareness.

2. Rarely or on whim: Send newsletters without a plan. When it happens, it happens. Be unpredictable. Send two emails in a week after a year of silence, so your readers don’t know what to expect.

3. Never remove contacts from your list: it did cost you a lot of time and energy to grow that list, so don’t give up on any single contact, no matter how inactive it is and how hard it bounces. Don’t believe in Database hygiene myth.

4. Does your unsubscription link work? Is it there actually? Don’t let these trivial questions occupy your mind too much. Well, people just won’t want to unsubscribe your newsletter, because it’s so awesome!

5. Outsmart the customer: add “Re:” or “Fwd:” in the subject line, so she thinks that your email is a part of earlier conversation. When she opens the message, conversion is inevitable.

6. Permission? Well, if you obtained an email in any way, it’s simply yours and you can do anything you please with it. Feel free to add addresses of people who corresponded with you on any matter to your database. Potential customer is a potential customer, right? Forget double opt-in, take whatever comes across!

Subject and content of your emails

7. Bait subject: when it comes to making reader click, no holds barred. Seduce with sales, use CAPS LOCK and many exclamation marks!!! Nothing works better that excessive punctuation – it suggests clearly that you have something important to say.

8. Boring subject: on the other hand, user knows that newsletters from you are always exciting, so don’t waste time on careful shaping of the subject. Besides, what’s wrong with “Our monthly newsletter”?

9. Lots of content, lots of words: it’s widely known that nothing relaxes you better than lengthy newsletter waiting in your inbox after the long day. That’s why people love thick books!

10. CTA? Users aren’t stupid: they will figure out that you want them to click and buy. Why to say it explicitly? There is enough content in your email already!

11. Email = offer: if users want information or answers, they have Google and social media. You don’t have to do all the work for them. You aren’t here to make their lives easier, right? People are just so lazy and want everything to be done for them. You job is so send offers, not to educate or help!

12. Lack of cohesion: different senders, different templates, no cohesive visual concept. What for?

13. Link to your home page. Or to category page with thousands of products. Dedicated landing pages cost too much work – doing it for every campaign consumes way to much time!

14. Me, me, me! You are the most important person here – actually, it’s YOUR newsletter. Focus on your product and thy it’s magnificent. Don’t get too interested in customers and avoid any tool that can help you understand them better, as Buyer Persona. Hej, customers, if you want to be in the centre of attention, get your own newsletters!

Personalization

15. Send only batch emails. If you put so much work in creating your mailing, why to limit the number of its recipients? You don’t need this stupid 1-to-1 emails. If you created something, it’s good for sure, so everyone will love it. And click.

16. More marketing in transactional emails! Don’t miss a single opportunity to tell your customer how fabulous you are and what she should buy. Include so many offers in transactional emails that vital information is hard to find. Who cares about shipping details when she can buy more?

17. Personalization? Lame! Everyone loves all your offer, so why to profile your communication? Who doesn’t care passionately about lawn mowers?

18. Email is a one-way communication: you speak, they listen. It would be absurd if you wanted to know what they think about it and let recipients answer in the email, or interpreted their behavior as a response.

Analytics and email marketing tools

19. A/B testing is a waste of time. Really, does it change anything if the button is red not green? Certainly not, especially with the great content you have!

20. Is there anything more boring than analytics?

No, there is not. Avoid direct contact with it at any cost. When by accident exposed to it, try to imagine it as an abstract painting. Numbers hurt!

21. How your email looks on mobile devices? Don’t worry, nobody uses mobile devices for reading emails – they have computers for it.

22. Don’t use Marketing Automation: you don’t need personalization or time of delivery optimization. Disdain 1-to-1 messages. Marketing Automation is an unnecessafry luxury.

Fear is the source of mistakes

Where email marketing catastrophes come from? As list above indicates, from fear. You are afraid of losing opportunity, of testing different solutions, of new tools, and most of all, of our actual customers. It’s easy to see them as a homogenous, abstract mass. But when you see individuals in there, with their problems and emotions, you might see your marketing in different, less favorable light.

Stop it! Don’t be scared, just face your customers and see real people there. Start talking to them: with surveys, social media and analytics. Your users’ clicks are responses to your message – try to interpret and understand it.