There are some email marketing mistakes you really cannot afford to be making if you want your message to engage consumers.

When experts talk about crafting great campaigns there are some suggestions that are all about going the extra mile and breaking new ground – on the other hand, what underlies all of this creativity at the top end of the scale is the understanding that basic errors are not being made.

Of course, sometimes the odd issue will appear in your promotional material, but you should ensure that this is a very rare exception, as your emails have the potential to do great things for your business – unless you mess them up with schoolboy mistakes. Below are ten of the most basic issues:

Spelling

Any writer knows how crucial it is for their copy to be faultless and while the odd error might get past editors, the very least you need to do is click the spell-check function. It takes a matter of seconds and yet some people forget to do it.

Unsubscribe

As well as being a legal requirement in the UK, an unsubscribe button will also help you clear your list of anyone who does not want to be there, which should help you build a more relevant subscriber list. Ignoring an unsubscribe request is plain silly.

Links

Any links in your email need to work properly, as a bad link will give a very poor impression of your brand and lose you a potential sale. Also, make sure you always have a link to your website in the message.

Formatting

Do your best to make your email look good on different devices – computers, tablets, smartphones, etc. – but at the very least test the message on different web browsers before sending it out.

Single blast

In this age of sophisticated advertising you simply cannot send the same message to your whole subscriber list. A basic level of segmentation should give your campaign a real boost, as you can ensure a greater level of targeting.

Too much

Do not get caught up in rambling about different things in the same email – keep things simple and concentrate on one message or call-to-action in each message. Complexity simply creates white noise that could drown out your words.

Too much Email frequency is a tricky topic and it is difficult to know exactly how many messages your subscribers want to receive, but error on the side of caution; starting out sending lots is not clever and a sure-fire way to lose subscribers.

Falling at the first hurdle

The ‘from’ field is not something that allows you too much scope for creativity, yet mess it up and you could well see people lose trust and unsubscribe. Keep it professional and avoid anything that looks vaguely like spam.

False claims in your subject line is one of your first battle arenas as an email marketer, but do not let the pressure of the situation cause you to make unrealistic claims. Whatever you promise to deliver in the subject line needs to be achieved or else you will immediately lose your reader’s trust.

Learning from mistakes

Last but not least, make sure you are learning from every mistake you do make, whether basic or otherwise. Alter your operations to avoid making the same error again, or think about how you can change a strategy to prevent suffering in the same way as a previous campaign. You can always learn a lot from past performance statistics about what has and has not worked.