Stephanie Donelson

Email marketing is a competitive area of your brand’s overall marketing strategy with consumers’ inboxes becoming a battlefield filled promotional campaigns, confirmation emails, and emails from friends and family all vying for attention.

When it comes to email marketing best practices, most of the lists tell you all the things you should be doing to send perfect email campaigns, but today I want to focus on 10 things you  shouldn’t be doing when it comes to email marketing to make sure your emails get the attention they deserve. 

From poor layouts to weak calls to action, these are the top email marketing mistakes to avoid in your campaigns. 

10 email marketing mistakes you should avoid

1. No unsubscribe option

Nothing is more annoying than getting a bunch of emails from a list you don’t remember signing up for – or worse, one you never did sign up for – and then not finding an unsubscribe option. Do not make it difficult to unsubscribe from your emails. I’m not saying you need a bright neon arrow pointing to an unsubscribe link, but you cannot hide this option or make the text white so people scan right over it. 

Follow email marketing laws by having a link available and leave a better impression on customers who want to unsubscribe for a bit. You might also want to direct people to a user preferences page where they can dictate how often they want to hear from your brand. That way you get to keep their email but they’re in control of your communication frequency. 

2. No consistency

I like emails from Trello, DSW, Ipsy, Ulta, HubSpot, Airbnb, and Sandals Resorts as they’re all templated and I know exactly what to expect from them when I open them. I can quickly scan the email to see if anything interests me and I know where to click to be taken to the website.

Change can be good, but not when it comes to your email’s template, colors, and button placement. You can have different templates for your newsletter and promotional emails, but make sure each campaign in the same category is consistent. 

3. Not designed for mobile

Fortunately many email builders automatically resize your email campaign for mobile, but it always surprises me when I see an email with an image that wasn’t designated as responsive and then enlarges the entire email on my phone. No subscriber is going to waste their time pinching and zooming out to see your email if you didn’t take the time to design it for phone viewing. 

Also make sure any landing pages you’re directing them to is mobile-friendly!

4. Bad subject lines

If you can’t ace your subject line, it really doesn’t matter how the rest of the email looks. Your subject line should be to the point and tell the subscriber what’s waiting for them inside the email.

Want to test your subject lines? Try these different tests to start:

• Use the subscriber’s first name and personalize it
• Use emojis to stand out
• Ask a question
• Tease exclusive content or discounts
• Use humor or make them laugh
• Invoke FOMO

5. Using too many fonts

It’s fun to be creative and use funky fonts but never use more than two fonts in an email – this isn’t your English paper you wrote in a Word Document and felt fancy by adding WordArt to it. You can still have fun with your emails without losing your professionalism. Arial, Helvetica, Tahoma, and Verdana are email safe fonts you can be sure will display correctly. 

6. Too small fonts

Your font should always be at least 12 points or even 14 or 16 to ensure people can read it. With people reading emails on smaller screens you need to make sure they can see it! This also motivates you to be succinct with your copy as bigger text means less room for your words. 

7. Using bad colors

You’ll typically use your brand’s colors, but sometimes you want to create a certain feeling or invoke an emotion that another color can do better. 

According to color psychology, when we see these colors we feel these emotions or associate them with words like:

• Blue: Security
• Red: Urgency
• Pink: Sweet
• Purple: Creativity
• Orange: Friendly
• Yellow: Attention
• Green: Relaxed
• White: Simple
• Grey: Authority
• Black: Sophistication 
• Brown: Rugged

That’s why deadlines and sales’ ending dates are often shown in red to make you excited about it and show it’s urgent. See if playing around with colors can get you more clicks and conversions. Just be careful and keep it to a few colors instead of throwing every color of the rainbow at your subscribers. 

8. No action items

Make sure each and every email has an action they can take, like shopping your sale or signing up for an exclusive webinar. Even newsletters should direct them to blogs, guides, or news for further reading. Your aim should always be for an email subscriber to click something in your email and take an action, preferably one that goes back to your website.

9. Not being Santa

Nothing is more cringey than realizing you sent an email with a typo or missing link. Double or triple check your campaign before sending. Be thorough in your testing by reading each and every word of your preview email! I once saw an email that had directions from the VP still in it telling the email marketer to use a sympathetic tone. Let me tell you, that really made the email seem genuine. 

10. Missing contact information

Just like you need to provide an unsubscribe option, make it easy for your subscribers or customers to get in touch with you. This is extremely important if you use no-reply addresses or have replies going to an unmonitored inbox. Share links to your social media profiles, a customer support email address, a phone number, and your website link. 

What other email marketing mistakes do you see in campaigns these days? Tell me in the comments below or give me a shout on Twitter!