- Mistake #1: Blatant Lack of Permission – Companies still try to get around the permission issues in search for the quick buck. That’s a big mistake.
- Mistake #2: Utterly Deficient Segmentation – Content relevancy is the number one issue for the email marketer. Without segmentation, you have no real relevancy.
- Mistake #3: Lame ‘Welcome’ Messages – We still receive far too many lame welcome messages. What a wasted marketing opportunity.
- Mistake #4: Frequency Decisions Made for the Wrong Reason – Marketers are in a constant battle on the matter of frequency.
- Mistake #5: Institution-to-One Messaging – The debate on how to personalize company emails is ongoing. It’s all about testing.
- Mistake #6: No Real Interactivity – Interactivity is not only for social media. Email was once the relationship building medium, and it still can be.
- Mistake #7: Deliverability: Content, Formatting & Lack of Self-Advocacy – If anything, deliverability is even a bigger issue than it was a few years ago.
- Mistake #8: Designing Images That Appear as Red Xs – Getting HTML images to appear for those who have images turned off still requires that they turn the images on. It’s the text vs. HTML debate.
- Mistake #9: Disregarding Your BlackBerry and Mobile Readers – The number of mobile readers has exploded since 2008. Thank you iPhone and Android. It’s more important than ever to make your email mobile reader friendly.
- Mistake #10: Repeating Ad Types – Banner blindness in email newsletters is more prevalent than ever.
- Mistake #11: Collecting Bad Response Rates – You need good analysis to determine the effectiveness of your email. That’s always been the case.
- Mistake #12: Relying on Email Only – This last mistake of relying on email only was written during the dawn of the social media revolution. It’s the only one that feels a bit dated, but it’s still worth noting that relying on just one tactic alone is never a good plan.
