By Sabrina Sucato
If you’re a business owner, you know that a newsletter can be a powerful tool. When done right, it’s a chance to connect directly with an engaged audience that’s expressed interest in your products or services at one point or another. However, because email is such a widespread platform, there are far too many ways for this valuable tool to go south. Here are the top mistakes to avoid when sending newsletters:
1 | You add contacts who haven’t opted into your newsletter.
If you only take one thing away from this article, let this point be it. Legally, businesses can only email contacts who have expressly opted to receive email communication. This is all well and good if you have a signup form on your website or a workflow to add customers to your newsletter. What you’ll want to stay away from is purchasing email lists or adding random contacts who never actually signed up. Not only is this not compliant, but it will also cause your unsubscribe rate to skyrocket and your open and click rates to tank, all of which can seriously hurt your email deliverability.
2 | You don’t format your newsletter for mobile.
We may be in an era of mobile everything, but it’s surprising just how many newsletters are not yet optimized for mobile. We’ve all had the experience. You open an email only to see that the text runs off the screen, the image sizing is all over the place, and the message gets clipped at the bottom. It’s a bad user experience that can cause people to unsubscribe without ever reading the content within the actual email. To work around this, make sure your email templates look good on both desktop and mobile. Most email platforms allow for mobile testing these days, so it’s just a quick check to make sure your format looks attractive and legible.
3 | You don’t include an unsubscribe button.
Here’s another legal compliance issue you’ll want to note. Every business email going to a dedicated list needs to have a one-click unsubscribe button. This can’t be a button that goes to a preference center to unsubscribe from certain lists, although that’s fine to include as well. Whether it’s at the top or bottom of the email, a clear “Unsubscribe” button needs to be present so recipients can remove themselves from the email list without issue.
4 | You don’t clean up your list periodically.
This is an underrated step that can make a big difference. Say you’ve built up your email list over the years, and you have a solid number of contacts. The only problem is that your open and click rates are low as can be. To improve these numbers, you’re going to want to do an email list cleanse to remove inactive contacts periodically. Six months is recommended, but if you do it at least once a year, you’ll still be in good shape. That way you’re only keeping people who actively engage with your brand on your contact list.
5 | You don’t optimize your subject lines.
With the sheer number of AI tools available to help with subject line optimization, it would be silly not to take this step. Still, too many businesses these days send emails with overly cluttered, unclear subject lines that don’t motivate people to open the messages from the outset. Do yourself a favor and spend a few minutes crafting a solid subject line with a call to action that will inspire recipients to open the email.
6 | You don’t ask people to sign up regularly.
Last, but certainly not least, don’t forget to ask people to sign up for your newsletter. If your email list is growing at a snail’s pace, take a moment to audit how you’re adding people to the list. Do you have a signup form on your website? Do you promote your email newsletter on social media? Do you have a QR code in your storefront to make it easy for people to sign up? If not, there’s no time like the present to make a few tweaks and help your list to grow.
Interested in newsletter management for your business? Contact our experts at newbusiness@todaymediacustom.com.
