7 Deadly Email Newsletter Sins

by Chris Mifsud

So you sent out your email newsletter.  Now you start the waiting game.  You wait for new customers to contact you.  And you wait.  So where are all your new customers?  You may be tempted to conclude that email newsletter marketing just doesn’t work for you.  But don’t be too quick to judge.  Fixing seven small mistakes may make a big difference in the effectiveness of your email newsletters.

Your email newsletter or ezine is an effective way to communicate with current customers or people you’ve met while networking.  It’s an opportunity to educate people and to establish yourself as an expert.  A newsletter keeps your business top-of-mind when your recipients find themselves in need of your services.  Sending out regular correspondence can also remind your current clients to make appointments for themselves, or to refer a co-worker, friend or family member who’s been complaining about a problem within your specialty.

However, unless you avoid the following mistakes, you may not receive any of the benefits of sending a newsletter.  Don’t worry, these are easy things to fix.  And as the old saying goes, “the devil is in the details”, so give your last newsletter a quick scan and see if you’re committing one of these seven deadly newsletter sins.

1. Boring subject lines
As with all writing for marketing purposes, the main objective is to write so that your reader takes the action you want, which is usually:  reading the next line.  In the case of an email’s subject line, you want your reader to be intrigued enough to open the email.  I could write an entire article on subject lines (and I probably will), but suffice to say there are lots of interesting ways to write them.  For example, asking a question often creates a compelling subject line.  Our brains are “wired” to seek the answer to the question, a temptation difficult to overcome when all we have to do to satisfy our curiosity is….click!

2. Wasting “real estate”
Congratulations!  You’ve hooked your reader with a great subject line and now you’re going to greet them with…a monstrous picture of colorful fruit.  Pictures are great; they can add interest, communicate ideas and enhance your message.  But after persuading your recipient to open your email, don’t make them work to find your headline or the first line of your message.  Inserting a huge picture at the top of your newsletter wastes the area “above the fold”—the area your recipients see immediately upon opening your email.  Instead, you want to engage your readers and make a connection with them immediately.  The content of your newsletter should begin at the top, and pull your reader through with each line.

3. Using “canned” newsletters
What I’m referring to are the “done for you” services that deliver email newsletters on your behalf.  Sometimes they specialize in certain professions, like chiropractors or acupuncturists.  While less expensive and less time-consuming, you might as well not send a newsletter at all.  Ouch, right?  Let me explain.  “Canned” material is usually very vague.  It doesn’t “speak” to anyone in particular—and to grow your business, you must speak to your target customer.  If your business relies on customers coming from the local community, you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors.  Sending out the same newsletter as your competitor will not grow your business!  That said, there are a lot of “done for you” services which do offer great value—ranging from services that allow you to personally select articles, to individuals that write and send custom content for your business.  If you do purchase articles, make an effort to write a personal introduction to your clients and prospects.  If you hire someone to write your newsletters, make sure they’re asking you about your target customers, your company’s image and what you’d like to communicate.  Don’t hire a service that doesn’t seem interested in what you want to achieve in your business or what kind of customers you prefer to attract.

4. Ignoring the CAN-SPAM Act
Not only is spamming bad marketing, it’s illegal.  Make sure you’re familiar with the basic requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act; however, most email services have the requirements built into their templates.  For example, your postal address and an option to unsubscribe are required, and most services automatically place this information at the bottom of your template.  What the email services can’t be sure about is whether you had permission to email everyone on your list.  Most services require you to indicate that you have permission when adding email addresses to your list.  Most email marketing services have a zero tolerance policy.  If you are found violating CAN-SPAM rules, they can (and will) cancel your email account.  Your website hosting company can also shut down your website.  But as I stated in the beginning, not having permission or an easy way to unsubscribe is just bad marketing.  Spamming won’t gain the trust of your recipients, much less convert them to customers.

5. Posting naked pictures
No, no—those kind are absolutely illegal.  (See the CAN-SPAM Act!)  What I mean is, pictures that are not “dressed up” with captions.   Did you know studies have shown that people tend to read captions without fail?  So use your captions to reinforce your newsletter’s message!  I like to choose my photo to illustrate an important or memorable fact that I want my reader to remember.

6. Neglecting to proofread
Nothing diminishes your credibility more than typos and grammatical errors.  Of course, as a professional pain-in-the-butt perfectionist proofreader, I am a little biased.  However, I have read statistics on this point, and errors do not make a good impression.  Prospective customers will judge you, at least in part, by your marketing material.  Make sure you have someone else read it over before you send it off.  It’s very easy to overlook errors when you have written something yourself—after all, YOU know what it’s SUPPOSED to say, and your brain will skip right right over it.  I’m very aware of this and always get my material proofed by somoene else.  Did you catch the typos in the last two sentences?

7. Not sending an email newsletter
One of my favorite business speakers, Bob Burg, says:  “All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like and trust.”  A consistent, quality newsletter is one of the best ways to establish visibility, rapport and credibility with the people on your email list.  If you provide helpful information, your recipients will value your newsletters and forward them to others.  A newsletter advertises who you are and what kind of customers benefit the most from your work.  Weighing in on issues that are important and relevant to your email list establishes you as an expert.  All this is done simply by sharing what you know with others.  But you won’t experience any of these benefits if you don’t send a newsletter.

I’ll conclude this article by issuing a disclaimer:  you may find that committing one of the seven deadly newsletter sins actually works for your business.   A photographer, for example, may benefit from posting a gorgeous shot in the valuable top half of an email; however, there’d better be a compelling offer or interesting information to go along with it.  And an intriguing subject line must be written in order to persuade people to open the email in the first place.  Testing what works and what doesn’t is part of the process of creating effective email newsletters.  Eventually, you’ll have a much better idea of the content that attracts your target customers, and what kinds of offers work well.  Then, you can sit back and watch the customers you love to work with walking in—almost as if they were heaven-sent!