The 3 worst email mistakes you need to avoid

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In this post I share three mistakes you’ll want to avoid when sending your emails. Once you know them, you’ll need to sweep every email to check for these mistakes so you know it’s ready to be deployed. No more hesitating on sending your emails!

The 3 worst email mistakes you need to avoid

There’s nothing worse than hitting send on an email and then checking your stats to see no low open rates, no click throughs, no sales, no engagement… or worse, spam markers or complaints.  That’s enough to scare you off forever and never email again.

So to make sure you’re “on-point” with your email, here are 3 mistakes you need to avoid.

Mistake 1: The email is all about you

We’re all excited to share information and news about our brand or products, after all our business is centered around what we do or create, but there’s nothing worse listening to someone drone on all about themselves.

Saying that, it’s perfectly okay to talk about these things in email, as long as you link it back to the reader… because they’ll always be subconsciously asking “What’s in it for me?”.

Link your email content to why this information is relevant to the reader. Highlight the benefits of your call to action. 

  • Are they going to learn something new to help them achieve something?

  • Why should your sale matter to them? Yes, it can be as simple as saving them money, but you’ve got to spell it out.

  • Got a new product? What are the benefits of your reader finding out more about it or even buying it?

Always dive deeper with the question from the readers point of view of “What’s in it for me?”

CHECK: Does your email pass the question “What’s in it for me?”

Mistake 2: Addressing the room

When you think of your subscriber list, do you think of them as your community and group of followers? That’s great, but when you’re writing your email, you have to remember that there is a single human being at the end of that email, reading your words.

You create a deeper connection with your reader when you address that one person individually. This doesn’t always mean using the personalisation tags in your emails to add their name in… it’s deeper than that.

For example, rather than addressing the room… “you all know that… blah, blah, blah” go with “you know that... “ instead.

Rather than “Many of you have said you want xxxx…” go with “I’ve heard that you want xxx” or “Many customers have said… xxx, do you feel the same way?”

You see how more intimate that is when you “virtually” look that other person in the eye and speak to them as an individual? It is so much more powerful AND it converts better too.

CHECK: Are you addressing your reader as one person?

Mistake 3: Broken links

This is the most common mistake I see from many online businesses. They send a great email and you’re sold on the offer they have, but when you click the link that should send you to their product or content, nada! The link is broken.

It happens to us all, even myself, but the way to avoid this is to send yourself a test email and check all links open correctly, and ideally in a new tab if possible.

CHECK: Are your links opening in a new tab and sending to the correct destination?


These are simple checks to do every time you write an email to make sure it’s ready for you to hit send.  Of course if you make these mistakes, the world won’t end, however your results will be much better (hello sales) when you avoid these mistakes.

Have fun implementing!


Other blogs you may find useful:

Email personalisation: should you do it?

My top 5 tools for writing emails

What to do with an email subscriber once they sign up

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