please, just stop

I'm never one to say this, so I hope this makes an impact: I would rather you stop sending email newsletters than you continue to send them while making detrimental (yes, detrimental) mistakes. Every time that I sift through my personal inbox and snoop through hundreds of marketing newsletters from companies I stay subscribed to (this is what I like to call #research) and notice any one of these mistakes, I want to email them with a new draft just for peace of mind (I've done it before).

If you're here, you already know that email marketing continues to be the main driver for customer retention and acquisition today, so why companies haven't zeroed in on how to squeeze the most out of this remains beyond me. Here 4 mistakes I beg you to stop making:

they're ugly

Yep, let's rip the bandaid right off. Pretty, aesthetically pleasing things catch people's attention, and that applies to your e-blasts. Align them to your brand's fonts and colors first, and then make sure they look good.

no personal touch

You're probably more loyal to the friend that opens up personally than to the one that only talks about work, right? Same applies here. Get personal and build that trust. I always like to start my newsletters with a personal introduction of what I've been up to, how I feel, or something relevant (but personal) before diving into the 'work stuff.' The second I started doing this on clients' newsletters, their open rate shot up to 50% or more.

zero empathy

When you're trying to sell something, you have to put yourself in your customers' shoes so that you speak to them in a way that will urge them to convert. There's no other option here, you just have to. Here's a video I made that breaks this down with live examples.

confusing CTAs

Ah, my favorite. CTAs only work if they're clear and your audience feels connected to you. Oftentimes I'll see companies include random buttons with CTAs that aren't relevant to what was mentioned in the paragraphs above, and it leaves me confused. The paragraphs above could have gotten me in the mindset to purchase, but if the CTA is unclear and confusing, my trust goes out the door and I just became a number in your bounce rate report. Always tell your audience what to do, what they can expect, and why you're telling them to do it.

There's more to it, these are just the top 4 mistakes I see, but changing this should definitely get you going in the right direction.

I'll keep an eye out for your changes!