It’s not easy to build and maintain a large email list. You’ll get new people to sign up but have you ever wondered why are you losing others? There are some things that make people unsubscribe from your email list and applying the most common marketing tactics won’t make them come back.
Unsubscribers are a potential threat to any business because you don’t really know why they decided to leave but also because they can turn into people who damage your brand. Maintaining a healthy email list usually transcribes into not making any mistakes and keeping your subscribers happy.
Unfortunately, some marketers fail to apply the theory and end up with a non-converting email list. You can avoid this by not making the following email marketing mistakes.
1. You’re trying to pitch them irrelevant products
Many marketers will use cross-selling and upselling to generate more income from email lists but some of them end up on the wrong side of this equation. Sending a niche email list irrelevant content is one of the biggest email marketing mistakes you can make. If you have a specialized list of people who want to learn more about agriculture and you try to sell them pink laptops, they will unsubscribe the very next second.
Another bad thing that may come from pushing irrelevant content is making people see and mark you as SPAM, every email marketer’s nightmare.
2. Your emails have formatting issues
Let’s say you bring new subscribers to your email list and they see bad formatted text or links that aren’t working. They will be disappointed with the content they were expecting won’t be matching their high expectations. You’ll end up with a lot of unsubscribers if you don’t properly format your newsletters and check every link.
Want to be on the safe side? Test and re-test every aspect of your soon-to-be sent message. Don’t forget about mobile devices since your emails will have to match those displays as well.
3. You’re too eager to send out messages
Depending on how complex your email list is, you may end up sending more than one message at a time to a single subscriber. Nobody wants to get too many messages after subscribing to your email list so make sure you avoid making this mistake.
If you fail to send out emails on an acceptable schedule, people will mark your messages as SPAM and unsubscribe from your email list.
4. You’re not taking advantage of content types
Most people stop after setting up an email list – they don’t customize it any further, and they don’t really care how their message is being sent out. After a few months, you’ll hear them saying email marketing is a bust although they’re just sending text emails to subscribers.
Yes, your message should be easy to read but that doesn’t mean you can’t use more than one type of content. Don’t be afraid to add images (with reasonable size), customize the line size and spacing and add a dash of color. The secret here is not to use too many of the above-mentioned items. Nobody wants to read an email written in 13 colors.
Are you trying to make your subscribers buy things too early?5. You want them to buy too early
Imagine subscribing to a newsletter that offers you free marketing advice then after one or two emails you get a “promotional offer. Don’t push products that early in the buying process. Let your subscribers accommodate, discover who you are and take advantage of some free resources before you offer them products to buy.
This mistake will surely drive your subscribers away so why not avoid it?
You can do this by creating an account on Scriptly and using one of our proven-to-sell email sequences. We have a lot of templates so you’re going the find the right one, for sure.
6. You don’t offer them any value
If people signed up for your email list, they would want to get useful information and nothing else. You may get away with promoting some products from time to time but don’t just go and self-promote yourself in every email. Your email list isn’t the place where you advertise your services.
You need to do some research and see what your audience wants from you. It may vary from articles, videos, how-to guides to audio guides or cornerstone content. Start slowly by offering them value and only then start promoting your services or products.
7. You fail to personalize the outgoing content
Another big mistake that some marketers make is to send the same content to their list of subscribers when they could easily create segments and increase the conversion rate. For example, if you create an email list for a bookstore, it would be a great idea to offer your visitors the option to subscribe for certain genre instead of having one big list.
You could send them emails when there’s something new in the science section or send out a personalized email for those who want to know more about photography albums.