Why your email strategy sucks (the most common mistakes I see)

I recently made a post outlining how brands should structure their entire email strategy to maximize revenue. I thought it’d be just as beneficial to outline what brands should not be doing and the most common mistakes that I’ve noticed.

I audit a handful of brands every day and it never ceases to amaze me how little attention most business owners give to their email strategy. In comparison to marketing platforms such as Facebook and TikTok, it’s 10x more profitable and half the headache.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t be utilizing PPC channels. A great brand will be harnessing PPC platforms and email marketing in unison. In fact, it’s almost impossible to make money from email marketing if you haven’t got an email list and the best way to build a list is to drive traffic to your site is with PPC. But once your ads are generating a consistent flow of high-quality traffic to your site, you’re missing out on a lot of extra revenue if you’re not utilizing emails.

Before I bore you, here are the biggest mistakes that I notice:

1. Letting your personal opinion cloud your judgment

I thought I’d start with a tip that most people do not want to hear, as it pertains to mindset. I hear it all the time:

“emails don’t work nobody opens them”

“Whenever I see a pop-up I click off the site”

“emails are a thing of the past”

“emails are spammy”

That’s just a few of the comments I hear all the time and honestly, there’s some merit to them. Lots of emails are annoying and spammy and lots of pop-ups are invasive and unappealing. I get where this sentiment comes from but that doesn’t change the fact of the matter, email marketing works.

You may dislike email marketing but the raw data suggests that it’s worth utilizing. I’m not going to use anecdotal evidence but rather industry data as I understand that it’s much more trustworthy.

• The average ROI for email marketing is $40 for every $1 spent (Omnisend 2022)
• The average open rate for Welcome Emails is 68.6% whereas the average email open rate across the board is 19.7% (GetResponse 2022)
• 49% of consumers said that they would like to receive promotional emails from their favorite brands on a weekly basis (Statista 2017)

Now I understand that this data may not be bulletproof as statistics are always changing and the methods for conducting these studies aren’t always airtight. But if you even half all of these stats, the numbers are still appealing, I suggest you do some research on your own to truly understand the power of emails.

If you think that email marketing is spammy, create really high-quality emails that genuinely provide value to your audience. Test a couple of basic flows and manual campaigns, analyze the resulting data, and then make a decision about whether or not the email marketing is worthwhile.

2. No lead capture form/poorly optimized form

A high-converting lead capture form is the foundation of email marketing. If you’re not collecting emails then you have no one to send them to.

I visit a lot of sites that only have the default form in their footer that generally reads “Sign up to our mailing list” and sometimes mentions ‘newsletter’ or discount’. Nobody is giving their email in this form.

Sometimes I see brands that do have great offers but again, their capture form is at the very bottom of their site where no one goes, and if they do get to the bottom they don’t even notice the form.

And then there are brands that do have their lead capture form as a pop-up but their offer is basically non-existent. If someone has just landed on your site why would they give you their email address to “stay up to date” with your brand? You’re offering no value to your visitors and only annoying them.

Another big mistake I see is these pop-ups being triggered instantly. As I mentioned in the last point, a lot of people believe that all things pertaining to email marketing are spammy and that your instant, low-quality pop-up is not helping. Instead, set your pop-ups to trigger after certain parameters are met. These generally work best:

Desktop: user showing exit intent (sometimes test this with time spent on the page too)

Mobile: 8 seconds spent on site or 60% scrolled

By setting these less invasive parameters you’re being a lot less spammy and your pop-up is only presenting to users who have shown a little interest in your site.

3. Weak offer

This point relates to the previous one. As mentioned, I see so many pop-ups that don’t offer any sort of value to the audience.

There are many variables when it comes to your lead capture form (text, design, triggers, etc) but the most important is offer. A common offer that often works well is the %OFF offer. It’s straightforward, actionable, and incentivizes a purchase.

A strategy that I don’t see used a lot is to test this %OFF offer with its equivalent $OFF offer. I know this sounds a little confusing so let me summaries.

For example, if you’re offering 20% off and your AOV is $100, most customers are getting $20 off on average. So instead of offering 20% off, offer $20 off. Obviously, it’s a super similar offer but perhaps your visitors will react much better to one over the other.

An even stronger offer that often works better than a discount is a GWP, which is a Gift With Purchase. Now, this isn’t possible for every brand but if you can, I definitely recommend testing it. In fact, a GWP may be cheaper for you than a discount offer. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant, just something simple that incentivizes the purchase. If you’re selling natural toothpaste, offer a free bamboo toothbrush with the first purchase, this shouldn’t cost you more than $1 and it’s probably more appealing than a discount code.

If you’re selling a digital product or service, perhaps a discount code isn’t 100% suitable for your brand (but if it is, tests it), so instead, offer another form of value. eBooks/PDFs that are super relevant to your industry and solve a problem for your audience are a great offer.

Local services can offer free consultations, quotes, and sessions. There are so many offers to test for every brand, just make sure you are offering something.

4. Emails not mobile optimized

Obviously, email campaigns are generally created on a desktop/laptop. You’d be surprised how many brands create emails with the desktop editor without even checking its compatibility with mobile.

Around 40%-50% of emails are opened on mobile, if your emails aren’t mobile friendly then that’s 40%-50% of recipients who will receive your ugly email and potentially mark it as spam.

Before sending any email, ensure that it’s well-optimized for both mobile and desktop. This is a simple one but quite a common issue.

5. Multiple objectives in one email

Every email you send should only have one objective. This shouldn’t always be to make a sale either. You should be sending a lot of emails that don’t even attempt to sell.

Whatever your objective is, ensure that your entire email aligns with it. Furthermore, if your objective is to sell, don’t try to sell everything at once and have one clear CTA.

Let me emphasize that, only 1 CTA per email. Doesn’t mean you should only have 1 button or 1 link, just make sure all your buttons are aligned toward the same goal.

I often see welcome emails that include the entire website header menu at the top. A lot of the big brands do this. It’s an email, why would you have a menu?

Declutter your email as much as possible, and don’t show off multiple products at once unless they all adhere to the same theme, such as best-sellers or a new collection.

Don’t show off your newest collection in an email talking about your brand values.

6. Poor deliverability/list hygiene

This is another super common one and something I get asked about a lot.

Deliverability is an easy thing to ruin, and not an easy thing to repair. I could make a whole post on this topic but here are a few things to apply.

First of all, never ever purchase an email list. It baffles me that people even do this. I’m not going to go into detail, just don’t do this.

Always start by ensuring that your email domain is authenticated. Ensure that SPF and DKIM are set up and enabled correctly. This is a boring and technical topic but I suggest searching how to properly authenticate your domain before sending emails.

Now that you have authenticated your email domain, ensure that the opt-in process is clear and genuine. Don’t use any dodgy tactics to capture emails. Always exchange value and ensure that users are consenting.

Once users have joined your list, always give them a clear opt-out in every email they receive. It’s crazy how many brands purposely complicate their opt-out process. Sure this might minimize opt-outs but it also drastically reduces the quality of your list and hurts your deliverability. Also, ensure that unsubscribes are global. This means that users who opt outof one list are taken off all lists.

Most of your emails should be sent to engaged users and people that show an interest in your brand. Don’t send 3 emails a week to unengaged users.

If your deliverability is already low and you’re aware that a lot of your emails are going to spam, do this:

1. First, follow all the previous steps
2. Create a customer segment of highly engaged users (interacted in the last 7 days)
3. For the next 30 days, only send to this highly-engaged segment
4. Only turn on the flows that have high engagement
5. Ensure that all your emails provide value and are well optimised
6. Understand that email hosting platforms have super-intelligent algorithms and filters designed to detect spam. Don’t use spammy language, particularly in the subject line. Words like FREE are a sure way to end up in spam. Get out the trusty old thesaurus and use less spammy works instead of FREE and INSTANT
7. Don’t use large images in your email. This will slow load time and email providers hate this. A bunch of smaller elements is better than one image block

Now here is the most important tip for maintaining deliverability and lead health. Always clean your list. Every single month you should be cleaning your list.

Bounced emails are one of the biggest issues. Never send multiple emails to an address that bounces, rid them from your list as soon as possible. Also, remove unengaged subscribers every month. Reengagement campaigns should only be sent once and if they don’t successfully engage the user, remove them from your list.

There are plenty of platforms that run a health check on your email domain for free. Glock Apps is a great tool to run tests and also get advice on how to improve your email health.

7. Flows too short

They’re called email flows for a reason. So many brands send one welcome email and leave it at that. Your welcome flow should be at lead 5 emails long, and it can be extended to 10+.

Flows are a great way to build rapport, social proof, authority, trust, and ultimately sell more. The longer the flow, the more opportunity you have to build a relationship with your audience.

It’s a little counterintuitive. A lot of people think the longer the flow the more spammy it is. As long as you’re providing high-quality, valuable emails you won’t come across as spammy. In fact, longer flows generally result in better results. Just carefully analyse the results and once the performance starts dropping significantly, that’s when you know to end the flow.

8. No segmentation

I know I’ve said this about just about every point, but it’s surprising how many business owners don’t do this. You should never be sending an email to your entire email list.

Segmentation is key to open rates, conversion rates, deliverability, and email health. Someone that has interacted with your brand in 2 months shouldn’t receive the same email as someone who just bought something.

Another benefit of segmentation is that it allows you to increase the volume of your manual campaigns without spamming your audience. If you break your list into 4–5 segments, you can send 4–5 emails a week without bombarding every subscriber.

Here are the essential segments every brand should have:

• Engaged
• Unengaged
• Buyers
• Non-Buyers
• VIP

9. Not going for the low-hanging fruit

The entirety of email marketing is a low-hanging fruit. But this point specifically refers to two campaigns that are so effective I can’t understand why any brand wouldn’t utilize them.

These two campaigns are ‘Back in Stock’ and ‘Product Launch’.

Blasting an email to your list when a product has been restocked is a no-brainer. If the product is sold out it’s obviously popular, and if you’re restocking there’s obviously more demand. Your back-in-stock campaign should create hype around the restock while establishing social proof and trust.

Product launch campaigns are quite similar with the obvious difference being that it’s a new product. Product launch campaigns work best when you’re simultaneously building hype on social media. Your lead capture form should be solely focused on this new drop as you’re sending a lot of new traffic to your site.

Start your email campaign around a week out from the drop and maintain a consistent flow of emails throughout the week. Another great strategy is to offer early access to your VIP list and previous purchasers. Create scarcity by letting them know only a limited amount of early-access stock is available.

The trick is to maintain enough hype while establishing scarcity and urgency.

There are so many more mistakes I see brands make when it comes to email marketing but I thought these are some of the most glaring.

What are some of the things you struggle with most when it comes to email marketing?