The Seven Deadly Sins of Email Marketing Management

It is a common misconception that the days of email marketing campaigns are over. However, reality is that email marketing is bigger than ever and if done right you can easily reap the benefits. So here are 7 things that you should never do when creating and managing your email marketing campaigns.

1. Failing test your design in multiple email clients – There are many email clients available from open source applications to enterprise solutions. Therefore in order to make maximum use of your emails, you should test them in as many of these applications as possible.

2. Failing to spam check your email content – most email servers today are equipped with the capability of spam checking the emails they receive. Most messages with a high number of images or HTML content tend to rate higher towards being spam. So always check your content before sending it out.

3. Putting hurdles in the way of unsubscribing – it is a legal requirement to allow your recipients to opt out of receiving your emails and it must be an easy process. However, if you are worried about losing readership you could give your recipients options like subscribing to a lesser frequent newsletter, change the email address to receive your emails or offer them the ability to add your blog or newsfeed as an RSS feed.

4. Neglecting to maintain a list of invalid addresses – you should always know how many addresses are invalid and cleanup your lists often in order to ensure that everyone on your lists receives your emails.

5. Becoming complacent – Email newsletters should be sent out often and in regular intervals. Sometimes you may not have been able to create fresh new content due to several reasons. However you should make it a point to stick to a schedule, if not recipients will lose interest

6. Content that is not relevant to what the user signed up for – this is a big turn off for the recipients. They will lose interest and unsubscribe quickly if you send content that they are not interested in.

7. Emailing users without their permission – this will guarantee that the recipient will either unsubscribe or report you as spam. Therefore keep in mind to email only users who wish to receive your emails.