5 Mistakes You’re Making In Your Emails

If you’ve been in the online business space for long enough, you know that your email list matters. When those social media outages occur, you need to know that your tribe is still contactable, and that’s where email subscribers come in.

By subscribing to your list, these people have quite literally verified that they want to hear what you have to say. You have permission to show up however often you want in their most intimate virtual space –their inbox. 

The problem is that many entrepreneurs and business owners don’t know what they’re doing with their email lists. They send out last-minute emails in response to a topic that popped up on social media 20 minutes ago (sometimes, that can work), or they just have zero strategies behind the content they send to their subscribers. 

Don’t be that business owner, please. To help you out, here are 5 mistakes you’re probably making on your emails and how to fix them so your list actually reads what you’re sending.

1. Zero Effort On Writing A Great Subject Line

This mistake is pretty easy to make, but it’s so important to stop doing it. Subject lines are what entice your audience to open your email, and if your subject line sucks, no one is clicking through to read your email…unless it’s an accident.

Take the time to write catchy subject lines. If anything, you should spend more time writing your subject line than your email. I talk more about writing better subject lines (plus a few other helpful tips for increasing your email open rates right here).

2. Length Of Emails

When it comes to emails, shorter is always better. I don’t think anyone will opt to read essay-long emails if they can get the information in a couple of paragraphs.

Most readers skim through content anyways, so don’t overwhelm them with so much text they’re getting college essay flashbacks. And please use everyday language that they will know and understand. Simple is always better than sophisticated.

Give your subscriber enough relevant information to keep them reading and enough juicy tidbits to persuade them to take action. Taking action is what your emails are all about. 

If your emails are long, but you don’t want to cut down any more words, consider breaking them up into a longer campaign and sending a few extra emails out to your list. Breaking up copy into digestible forms makes your content easier to understand and less likely for your subscribers to stop reading midway through your email.

The exception to this rule is if your audience is extremely engaged with your content. An engaged audience takes time to build, so I don’t recommend it for most entrepreneurs, but for the lucky few, long emails can work as long as you catch your reader’s attention early (subject line) and continue with a strong narrative.

3. You Don’t Have One Goal

Each email should have a single goal, and all the content inside one email should work to accomplish that one goal. I see way too many business owners sending out emails with several different CTA’s asking their readers to take too many different actions. That’s confusing for your reader and a recipe for disaster.

If you want your reader to read a blog, listen to a podcast, follow you on Instagram, book a consultation, or view your services page, cool. Pick ONE action for each email. Whether it’s your welcome sequence, your weekly newsletter, or re-engagement sequence, have one goal for each individual email. Your email marketing will see much better results if you do this.

4. Focused On You, Rather Than Your Reader

It can be really easy to make your emails self-focused. Don’t fall into the trap! Always write your emails (and any other copy) with your audience top of mind. People love hearing about themselves, even if they are reading about your story. 

Every email should give your audience value that they can use moving forward. If you tell a story, circle it back to your reader. If you announce a new product or sale, circle it back to your reader. Make everything you write relevant to them!

5. You Mislead Your Reader

If you make a promise in your subject line or in your email, deliver on it. No matter what. Grabbing attention isn’t enough. Attention-grabbing content or offers may convert people, but it doesn’t keep them. 

What does keep them is receiving something they’ve been promised. Deliver on your promise –I would even go as far as recommending you OVERdeliver on your promise. Make subscribing to your email list worth the wild.

Hopefully, these tips will help you turn your email marketing around, so you start seeing a return on your efforts and investment with your list!

If you need help writing emails that convert, check out my Services Page to see how we can work together! If you want to write your own copy, but need a little help, check out the Copy Club!