7 Rookie Email Marketing Mistakes

Email marketing remains one of the best sources of revenue for businesses today. Shoppers still value email marketing for brands they love to stay informed, learn about new product releases, and be alerted when there are sales for their favorite products. But, I see even the biggest brands making a few rookie mistakes that negate the benefits that email marketing can have for a business.

Here, I’ll go over the consequences of making these rookie email marketing mistakes and the success you can have with your email marketing if you avoid these mistakes.

Mistake #1: Not Segmenting Your Audience

You work hard to collect shoppers’ email addresses through purchases, pop-ups, free downloads, surveys, newsletter subscriptions, and more. But, if you don’t segment your list, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. By segmenting your audience, you can serve targeted messaging that will help to improve email revenue.

Personalization has become extremely important to shoppers. The more you can tailor what you send that speaks to a shopper’s specific preferences, the better off you’ll be. You can segment your audience by:

• Engagement
• Past Purchases
• Position in Funnel
• Site Behavior
• Personal Interests
• Demographics
• Survey or Quiz Results
• And More!

Mistake #2: Not Using Alt Text on Images

I see a ton of businesses of all sizes make this mistake. They utilize images in their emails, a lot of images. This can be fine IF you assign alt text to those images and there aren’t too many of them.

Email providers scan emails for general intention. If your email uses images without alt text, an email provider is more likely to mark your email as spam. And just like that, you’ve lost the opportunity to even have your email opened rather than clicked on or purchased from.

I recommend utilizing a mixture of images and text in your emails. Use as much text outside of images as possible as this will have the least likely chance that your email will land in spam. And when you do use an image, assign alt text to it that describes what the image is conveying. If it’s a sale banner, assign it alt text such as “2022 Memorial Day Sale.”

Mistake #3: Not Sending Yourself Tests or Checking Links

Ever send a coworker an email that says “see attached,” but you forgot to attach anything? That’s not a good look…But, forgetting an attachment on an email that goes out to 10,000 customers? Eek!

I’m sure you’ve seen an email from a brand that has a broken image, invalid hyperlink, misspelled words, and worse! The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to send yourself a test email. It’s really simple. Interact with the email in your inbox to see if anything is acting quirky or is broken or links to the wrong place. It takes 5 minutes or less and can potentially save your brand unnecessary embarrassment.

Mistake #4: Not A/B Testing

A/B testing can be really useful in finding out what your customers engage with the most. You should be A/B testing subject lines, sale messaging, CTAs (call-to-actions), and more! If your brand is newer, or you’re working to improve current open rates, click rates, CTRs, or revenue, try A/B testing.

With A/B testing, the best rule of thumb is to test one element at a time. Start with changing your copy, see if there is a performance shift – then move onto the next element to test. This will give you a clear indication on what is influencing a better conversion.

Mistake #5: Not Checking Spelling or Grammar

As with sending yourself a test email to check that hyperlinks are working, it is just as important to make sure your email uses correct spelling and grammar. Nothing can diminish the validity or trust for your brand like poor spelling or grammar.

I recommend using a tool like Grammarly. They offer a free plan that will help you catch any misspellings or grammatical mistakes before your customers do.

Mistake #6: Not Planning

We’ve all gotten an email from a brand that just seemed…underwhelming, haphazard, or poorly timed. It makes you take a step back and say, “what were they thinking?” The best way to combat this with your email marketing is to make a plan.

Plan your email content calendar. Plan your flows.

Mistake #7: Not Taking Email Off Your Plate

I see a lot of small business owners trying to manage their email marketing. Or, they’ll pass it to their one or two-person marketing team. Let me tell you, email marketing is involved, and if you or your small marketing team don’t have the bandwidth to plan, deploy, monitor, and tweak your business’s email marketing, you can lose out on that revenue stream.

I recommend outsourcing your email marketing to a third-party agency that can handle the ins and outs of email marketing for you. They provide the expertise and time needed to maximize your email marketing efforts. Free up you and your team’s time to focus on R&D, sales, and more!

Spark Bridge Digital is an email marketing agency that helps e-commerce businesses do just this. We help brands generate email campaigns and automations that convert, providing 20%+ in monthly revenue. If you’re looking to get results from your email marketing and looking to free up your time, click below to request a free audit and three-month roadmap of what Spark Bridge Digital can do for your brand.