Email Marketing: Top 10 List of Reasons Why Your Last Email Campaign Stunk

A direct rip from Email Labs article by Loren McDonald, this is hillarious: Top 10 List of Reasons Why Your Last Email Campaign Stunk. Drum roll please...
10. Addressed Each Recipient as "Dear Sucker"
Personalization is a must. Recipients expect it and the more you personalize an email the more successful it is in generating a response.

9. Earl in Shipping Wrote the CopyPeople do read email copy.
A common mistake emarketers make is in not using a professional direct response copywriter. Secondly, they assume the less copy the better, but end up with weak copy that also does not provide enough information to motivate a response.

8. Hired Neighbor's Son, Who Is Taking An HTML Course at the Local JC, to Design the Email. While almost anyone can learn to program HTML, email design is a very unique skill. In fact in our experience, many otherwise strong designers often struggle to create great emails.

7. Your Subject Line Was - "We Have What You Want...Really!"Good subject lines are critical to high open rates - which in turn drives your click-through and conversion rates. Always test a few subject lines before mailing in bulk.

6. Used "Joey Buttafuco" as the From Line
From lines can have a huge affect on open rates. Whether to house or rented lists, don't overlook the importance of from lines, and always test first if possible.

5. Landing Page Sign-Up Form Asked For GPA From Grammar School
A common mistake companies make is to ask people for too much information, too early in the "relationship." If you've mailed to a targeted list, recipients should already be "pre-qualified." Don't scare them away by trying to obtain your demographics wish list.

4. Thought "Live People Who Own Computers" Was a Targeted List
While the perfect list (or lists) rarely exists, conducting thorough list research and analysis will reap huge dividends. Segment your house list as appropriate and choose as many selects as are available when renting opt-in lists.

3. Your Offer Was - "FREE Copy of Our New Brochure"
Email offers must be compelling. Whether it is value proposition oriented or an incentive, an offer must be personally relevant and strong enough to motivate recipients to take action.

2. Thought "Testing" Was Only for Students and Olympic Athletes
Testing is integral to the success of email campaigns. Test the most important variables in your email, and apply the learning to your bulk campaign.
and the number one reason....

1. Rented List From "Bob's Email List Discount Warehouse"
Perhaps one of the most common and biggest mistakes companies make is in renting inexpensive lists. While poor creative can produce weak campaign results, great creative will rarely generate a good response from a cheap list. For some reason, many emarketers believe that old adage "you get what you pay for" doesn't apply to email lists.

Propable 10 mistakes you would not want to repeat in email marketing!