Whether you’re advising readers of your latest blog posts or announcing new book releases, sales, contests or other book promotions, there are right and wrong ways to engage your readers with emails. Here are seven great pointers – mistakes to avoid – from ace email marketing service, Mailchimp. Click on the title or image to read their entire “Common Rookie Mistakes” online or you can download a free pdf or digital edition:

1. Not 
Having
 Permission

Before you can send any email-marketing material, you must have
 permission from recipients. Before 
investing your time and money in an email-marketing program, start getting
 permission from your readers. It’s easier than you think, and it’ll result in
 fewer spam complaints, better deliverability, decreased legal liability, and—
most importantly—better open and click results.

2. Assuming People
 Want to Hear
 From You

Did everyone on your list specifically give you permission to email them? If 
not, then you’re just assuming they want to hear from you. Big mistake.
 They’re going to report you as a spammer.

This concept seems to confuse a lot of people. They say, “But I get emails
 all the time from people I’ve never heard of, and I appreciate it.” Know that
 it’s different if someone sends one email directly to you, with a sales pitch.
 But when that same person crosses the line and “blasts” a sales pitch to
 an entire list of people, it quickly becomes spam. If you have a list of readers that know you, but they 
haven’t exactly opted-in for newsletters from you, then send them personal, 
individual email invitations asking them to join your list.

3. Purchasing Email 
Lists

By now, everyone should know better than to buy a “totally legitimate list of
 30 million opt-in emails” via some sketchy piece of spam they got. That’s 
pretty obvious, but there are still some vendors out there selling “opt-in”
 lists the old-fashioned way. They collect email addresses and ask members 
if they’d like to “receive special offers from third parties.” Then, they sell 
those email addresses to other people. It’s not technically illegal, but be wary of any groups that just want to give
 you a big list of emails. They should be doing the delivery for you, so their
 recipients will recognize the sender, and so you won’t get reported for spam.

4. Thinking 
”Blast” Instead of
 “Relationship”

We cringe when someone asks us if we can help them “blast” an email out
to people. For one, the word “blast” should only be used in reference to
missiles and tanks. Not permission marketing. Secondly, when people say
 “blast,” it usually means they think email is just a way to shoot out a bunch
 of emails, whether people want to hear from them or not. Email is all about
 getting permission from readers, sending them stuff they want to read,
 and listening to their feedback.

5. Writing 
Like a Used-Car
 Salesman

Don’t use pushy sales copy,
 like “BUY NOW!!!!” or “LIMITED TIME OFFER!!!” in email. It’s obnoxious.
 Plus, spam filters will penalize you for using what they consider “spammy”
 content.
 Spam filters look at a long list of criteria to decide whether or not an email is 
junk. These items are almost always on their lists of spammy criteria:

• Going crazy with exclamation points!!!!!!
• USING ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT’S LIKE YELLING IN AN EMAIL OMG
• Coding sloppy HTML (usually from converting a Microsoft Word file to
 HTML)
• Coloring fonts bright red or green
• Using the word “test” in the subject line
• Creating an HTML email that’s nothing but one big image, with little or no
 text

6. Sending 
With a Personal
 Reply-To
 Address

Don’t use your “@yahoo.com” or “@aol.com” home email address.
 You have an author website, don’t you? (If not, you probably shouldn’t be sending
 any email campaigns yet.) Use your website’s domain, on which you
 probably already have emails accounts. Some people like setting up an
additional [email protected] address for their emails. That
 works too.

7. Ignoring
 Campaign
 Reports

One of the benefits of email-marketing services like MailChimp is that you 
can measure results after every email campaign. It’s tremendously useful.
 Check your email stats after every single campaign you send. Look for 
trends. Make changes to campaigns to see if you can improve your open
 rates, click rates, and, most importantly, conversions (someone buying your book as a result of your email). Remember: Always be checking.

Have you tried email marketing yet? Share your experience!

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