Today's topic will help you sidestep the biggie, beginner's blunders. As you'll see, there's plenty of overlap in these mistakes. They work together for success, but can also combine to equal certain doom for your campaign.

1. Wrong list. 
The right audience is paramount. It seems quite obvious, but it also assumes you have a lot of marketing knowledge about your target reader. If you have developed your list gradually via a double opt in subscription on your web site, congratulations!  You have a well-groomed and targeted list. 

Based on direct mail metrics, the list is said to account for 40% of your success rate. That's pretty significant.

2. Irrelevant content. 
Once you're pretty sure you have the right audience, it makes sense that you need the right content.  Relevancy takes into consideration the content, creative, audience and timing.  Not to worry, it doesn't require higher calculus to figure out.  This marketing 101 strategy is the basis of all good email or any other type of marketing.  Building rapport via email is just like any other rapport building so think about ways to:

•  provide valueable information to help your audience
  
• give back in multiple ways
• stay in touch with 7 touches being the average to make sale
  

It is said that content accounts for another 40% of your success rate. Readers will respond to information that is important to them and engaging enough to consider. Of course, this is always easier said than it is to actually accomplish.

3. Poor creative execution. 
Even with the correct list and great content, your message will be lost without reasonably professional creative development. This includes "from" and subject lines, graphic treatments, artwork, photos, logos, colors, fonts, formatting, as well as spelling, grammar, and the amount of information.

Traditionally, creative is said to account for the last part of the 40-40-20 percent rule of your success rate, though I tend to believe in some industries, this is more important, intricate and subtle than the percentage would impart. 

How are you going to attract your audience? Is your email engaging? Is the offer and its layout intriguing? Do you offer a reason to learn more?

4. No call to action nor landing page. 
A call to action can be quite simple.  Now that you have me reading and because you've provided valuable and relevant information to my life, what do I do to continue to learn more, get more value or share with people to meet my goals and objectives.

Any combination of: softer call to actions such as "learn more", "full story" or "send to a friend" will help you stay in touch or help someone feed others with valuable content.

For more immediacy, sometimes more urgent call to actions are necessary such as "call today", "act now", "sign up here" or "sale ends Friday" are ncessary to do the trick.

Depending on your sales style and needs, choose the call that makes the most sense to what you do.

5. Ill timed frequency and delivery. 
Readers can only tolerate receiving so many marketing emails from you each month. It's necessary to know where you must draw the line before you cross it. Readers who feel badgered will unsubscribe from your list. Be cautious and nurture your list. Make each email matter.

Although success of email campaigns have come on every day of the week, Tuesdays or Wednesdays and sometimes Thursdays according to statistics are the best days of the week to send an email campaign.

The good news here is that timing and frequency are completely flexible, testable, and easy to change. Start using your statistics tracking when you send your emails and how often, then watch to see how these affect your success rate.

6. Dearth of strategy and campaign.  
Successful email marketing requires forethought, planning and a budget to continue with a campaign. The same holds true for advertising in any medium. A single insertion ad in the local newspaper, for instance, is nearly a complete waste of money. However, an ongoing media buy in several local and regional publications along with radio, Web and outdoor is a powerful combination. The trick is to hit your audience with the right message more than once, without violating email frequency expectations.

For example, if you have a yearly event, you can email pre-show to elicit excitement, during the show with news, and post-show with pictures and commentary.  To do it well requires some thoughts around a campaign that ties into the event.

7. Opaque blindspots. 
The work necessary to appear transparent is part and parcel in the email marketing campaign. Your audience needs to trust you and your offer whether it be education, a quality product for sale or a workshop / webinar of high value or content.  Interestingly, the same elements that can help alleviate these concerns are also helpful for improving click through rates. 

Here's another area where writing superior "from" and subject lines becomes essential to your success. It's also helpful to include a signature with contact information and make it super simple to manage subscription accounts and to unsubscribe.

Seven common mistakes. 
These are some of the basics although these bad habits are still rampant among the expert email marketeers.  There are definitely more, such as harboring the wrong expectations or using home email systems for bulk mail delivery.

However, these seven will enough for now.  It'll keep any email marketer busy for some time.  Good luck! 

And please let me know how it works out.