There is a lot of helpful information available to help email marketers get the best results for their time and effort. Yet somehow senders continue to repeat the same mistakes that cost them both time, money, customers and potential leads. Here are some mistakes to avoid.

Basically, ask yourself if you’re still making these email marketing mistakes and if you are – stop! It’s time to get wise about your email marketing and approach your strategy like a professional.

You’re using a purchased, scraped or old list

We are a broken record when it comes to this point and you’ve possibly even heard this before. It seems like senders may choose to ignore this tip, especially when it comes to sending to old lists. Time and again we see campaigns go out to thousands of invalid or old addresses both generating IP reputation issues, complaints, or slow delivery.

If you send to an old (anything over 6 months) list, an unverified list (contacts you gathered by sign-ups at a booth or trade show for example) a purchased list (never purchase lists) or have been given access to a general industry database (totally unsolicited mail!) then you will experience delivery issues or worse, your account will be closed permanently and you won’t be able to send mail at all.

Using deceptive subject lines

Ah yes, the old deceptive subject line trick. The only issue is, using “Re:” for example in your subject line is not only obvious but a major turn off to prospective customers. People want to know what to expect when they preview their emails. Telling a contact clearly what to expect in the message body is way more effective for building trust and brand awareness than trying to be sneaky with your subject lines.

Not optimizing your email (or website) for mobile

Ugh… Sad face. That is what your contacts think when they open your message on their phone and can’t read the email properly. Maybe you even got them to click a link but if they go to your website and the reader can’t navigate through menus on their mobile then you’ve just done yourself a major disservice. Grab some phones and do some testing – you want every email you send and visitors you have to be wowed by the ease with which they can view the information you’re providing.

Not editing your copy for grammar and spelling errors

Everything looks good, right? Did you only edit your work once? Are you working in a second language? Have you just been staring at the same email copy for too long? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions ever then you need to make sure you take the extra steps needed to perfect your email messages before you send them off. That means double and triple-checking your work, getting a native language speaker to evaluate your grammar and spelling or getting a second set of eyes to review your content from a fresh perspective.

Making it hard to unsubscribe

Still trying to make that unsubscribe teeny-tiny? Maybe blend it in by making it a similar color to the background of your email? These are old school techniques thought to reduce unsubscribes, however, all they really do is annoy your recipients at best and increase your complaint rates at worst. The requirement of an unsubscribe option in all emails (transactional too) is not to your disadvantage as an email marketer. You want to keep your list as clean and up to date as possible and that means anyone who isn’t interested in your offerings should be given a way out. You don’t want to spend time and money sending emails to unengaged contacts.

You can easily fix or avoid making these mistakes as you move forward with your email marketing efforts.