4 E-mail Campaign Mistakes To Avoid

If you’re in the business of selling stuff on your website, you’re losing out on major marketing potential if you don’t utilize e-mail campaigns. It’s a great way to keep existing or potential customers in the loop regarding your latest products or company information. For example, I recently bought a Kobo e-reader, and the company frequently sends me the latest books and deals. It’s useful! However, it’s easy to go too far in the opposite direction and commit some cardinal e-mail campaign mistakes. These sins can tank your marketing efforts and harm your brand.

Here’s what to avoid.

1. Not Adding E-mail Authentication Records

The first thing you want to do is to ensure that your email doesn’t go to your users’ spam folder. One reason this can happen is if the receiving server is unsure about its origin. It’s trivially easy to spoof a sender address, and with all the phishing scams and data breaches out there, email providers like Google, Outlook, and Yahoo are very suspicious of unverified email domains.

Fortunately, there exists a way to secure your e-mail accounts through DKIM and SPF records. These are special records in your DNS tool that allow e-mail providers to check the provenance of a particular e-mail. Including these records will boost your credibility and ensure that your customers are getting your e-mails.

Adding DKIM and SPF records using NameHero is easy. If you haven’t already done so, follow this tutorial. If you have a domain name from another provider, check their specific instructions.

2. Use a Dedicated E-mail Marketing Campaign Software

If you’re serious about e-mail marketing, you need to ensure that you have dedicated software to create, track, and integrate your e-mails fully into your website. You’ll also need something to manage

There are many examples of such software. Some of them have a free tier, and others have a pay-as-you-go plan for those who use it infrequently. When it comes to email campaigns, don’t make the mistake of looking unprofessional.

A couple of providers to get you started on your search are Zoho email campaigns, and MailChimp. But these two are by no means the only ones. There are tons of services out there for you to find.

3. Not Implementing One-Click Unsubscribe

Few things are more annoying for a customer than not being able to unsubscribe immediately. If you’ve followed my advice in (2) and are using a professional e-mail marketing campaign software, then the “unsubscribe” link will be added automatically to e-mails at the bottom. Try and make it so that the receiver just needs to click once. No polls or surveys asking them why they don’t want to receive your emails.

Worse still is when some sellers say “It make take up to a week before your e-mail is removed from the mailing list”. I can’t believe it when this occurs. Instant reporting to spam. If enough people mark your e-mails as spam, you’ll probably be flagged for all future e-mails. So take care not to piss off your customers!

4. Not Using an E-mail Service like Google Workspace

Once you start dealing with large volumes of e-mail, you need an efficient solution to manage all the spam. Sorry to say that your in-built hosting provider just won’t cut it. You need a professional solution. Google Workspace works wonders and you don’t ever have to worry about losing your e-mail when you switch servers. In addition, you get to integrate all the other apps like Calendar and whatnot. If you deal a lot with e-mail, I can’t imagine relying on the local web host for efficient mailing. Save yourself a ton of trouble with a professional solution!

Hopefully, these few tips will get you started with e-mail campaign marketing, and provide you with a strong base to make the most of direct contact with your clients!