Kenneth Yu wrote an interesting article called 7 Deadly Email Marketing Sins in which he covers 7 of the most common problems email marketers make. I recommend you check it out. Here’s a gist of what Kenneth covers:
- Don’t Oversell. Don’t push your products too hard.
- Don’t be boring/bland.
- Don’t be too smooth/glossy/perfect. Be personal & intimate.
- Don’t sound like spam.
- Don’t copy/reuse other’s emails.
- Test what works.
- Be likable.
- Don’t accept others advice without testing things.
I’d probably add a few more:
- Don’t cc 20+ people
- Run the spell checker before sending the email
- View a test version of your email on various email clients (like hotmail, aol, outlook, etc) first
- Be relevant. Don’t send a promotion for fiction books to non-fiction book readers.
