The MailBakery Blog

August 10, 2020

Common Email Automation Mistakes to Avoid

Reading Time: 6 minutes

This article was last updated on December 12, 2023

Everyone makes mistakes. After all, no one is perfect. Email marketing mistakes are very common but, unfortunately, a marketing mistake can cause catastrophic results. Have you ever noticed a typo in an email from a brand? Or maybe even on social media. It happens. But a typo and small errors in marketing cause more harm than you think. So, today we’re covering the most common email automation mistakes to avoid (volume 1).

One way to avoid mistakes is to double-check your work. Check it three times, maybe even four. Have several people review your work before hitting the publish button. It might seem like a daunting task, but its better for someone within your organization to catch the error than for a customer or potential customer to catch the error.

Common Email Marketing Mistakes (the contents):

Sending From An Automated Email Address
Not Mobile Friendly
Sending the Same Email to All Subscribers
Including Several Call-to-Action Buttons
Making the Unsubscribe Link Hard to Find
Sending Spam Emails
Sounding Like A Robot
Don’t Forget About the Design!

There are quite a few mistakes you can make when it comes to email automation. In addition to spelling and grammatical errors. Here are some of the most common email automation mistakes to avoid with email automation:

Sending From An Automated Email Address

Have you ever received an email from a “do not reply” email? Many businesses send emails from a do not reply email for reminders and things along those lines.

When it comes to email marketing, you should always send emails from a familiar address. Do not reply addresses are uninviting and it becomes quite obvious that the email is a mass email, which is more likely to be tossed in the spam folder.

An email from a “do not reply” address will harm your open rate, as the sender’s email address is reason number one which affects email open rates, in addition to the subject line.

Additionally, you want readers to respond to your email. That means they are interested and asking questions is their way of showing interest. Send an email from a friendly email address, that someone in your organization has access to, so that they can respond to any email replies you might receive.

Not Mobile Friendly

According to Litmus’ 2019 email client market share, 42% of all emails are opened on a mobile device; and we don’t expect this to drop any time soon.

As the majority of email users open emails on mobile devices, many companies are still not optimizing their email campaigns for mobile devices. If your email can’t be opened or read clearly on a mobile device, you are missing out on more than half of your audience reading those emails.

To prevent this from happening you can follow the best practices for responsive email design. Last but not least, before sending emails, always test the email yourself to ensure that the message reads well on a mobile device.

Sending the Same Email to All Subscribers

Email automation may seem great to you because, for the first time, there is a way to send the same email to all of your subscribers. However, this is another mistake to avoid.

For your emails to be effective, they must be relevant. This means that your message must be different based on the interest of your readers. It is very unlikely that all of your subscribers will share the same interests, which is why you must segment your emails.

You can segment your emails based on information such as your subscriber’s location, job title, industry, company size, and interests.

You can use email list segmentation best practices for high open rate and better engagement.

Including Several Call-to-Action Buttons

A clear message is important. The email should be easy to read and have a clear call to action.

If you include several call-to-action buttons, the reader might become confused as to what the message of the email is, so they may not take any action at all.

One call-to-action button will increase the click-through rate and the email will be more effective. Here are our 11 Tips For Effective Calls to Action in HTML Emails

Making the Unsubscribe Link Hard to Find

Some subscribers may choose to opt-out of your emails. If this happens, you should be considerate of their choice and make it easy for them to unsubscribe.

Allowing readers to unsubscribe should be as easy as possible. Not only does it show that you are not forcing them to receive your emails, but it improves your results. If someone is uninterested in your emails, it is unlikely they will take action anyway, so it is just better for them to unsubscribe if that is what they wish.

Sending Spam Emails

Email users are bombarded with emails each day. They receive personal emails, work-related emails, and tons of emails from other brands.

If you were to send an email every day, after a while subscribers would pick up on it and eventually mark it as irrelevant, ultimately sending your emails to their spam folder (which harms your results.)

Only send automated emails that are necessary. To do so, create an email automation strategy by determining the reasoning for your automated emails. For instance, maybe you want to send an automated email to everyone that subscribes to your emails and automated emails for deals that your reader might be interested in. Stick to that strategy and don’t send an email every day that is not relevant to your strategy.

When someone subscribes to your email, make sure there is a way for them to share what types of emails they want to receive, that way they always receive emails that they are interested in.

Sounding Like A Robot

Any form of automated content can easily come across as robotic. That’s what email automation really is since you are not sending each individual email.

Automated emails that sound like a robot wrote them are uninviting and can leave readers uninterested. When crafting automated emails, be sure to write as if you were writing to your favorite customer or business partner.

Don’t Forget About the Design!

Last but certainly not least, one of the most common email automation mistakes we see is that people forget to craft your emails with a warm, welcoming design that makes your email easy to read.

The design of your email can completely alter the way your audience perceives your emails. Don’t underestimate a good email design.

Can your email designs use a little work? Our team at MailBakery is here to help craft the perfect email design for your audience.

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