Email seems an old tradition to you, yes, of course, emails have turned more than 40 now and it has now outpaced by instant messaging, texting and even Facebook messaging. Yet people don’t give away their Gmail account, that’s because, despite the stigma of being middle- aged technology, email is still useful and accepted universally. Some of the things that can be done through email marketing is making it more exciting, says Chip House, Vice President of Relationship Marketing at ExactTarget.

For small businesses, email still represents an effective and cheap way to establish or maintain a relationship with clients. But there is the hub. While emails being fairly neutral-to-positive, the contents has the power to either attract or repel- so before you hit “send” on your next bunch of email newsletters, take note of these 3 common email marketing mistakes.

Emailing without Permission

Receiving an email newsletter that you didn’t sign-up for feels like an invasion of privacy. Some of the small email marketing firms buy a list from a third party and start hitting on the list. This method is not considered as a best practice and can be problematic as you don’t know any of the people on the list, or you have not established a relationship with any of them.

Another concern with purchased contact list is, you never know how old the email is, or even it is still in use, as people keep changing their email accounts, change jobs or even gets fired. Hence, it is best practice to build up your own contact list through a proper form that people fill up for email newsletters.

Assuming people are waiting to hear from your business

People probably send emails and newsletter to trash from people or business they are unaware of without even opening it. If a business sends a “blast” of emails to unauthorized contacts, assuming that they all want to hear from you, you are sending spam.

Having no defined purpose

According to experts, many people start an email campaign without any vague notion of what they are doing it. Setting of goals for email marketing and defining what’s in it for the subscriber is very important for a successful email marketing program. A proper Call To Action definition is also as important as sending the mails. A clear purpose of email subscription- to educate, to start a dialogue, to engage customers, to notify people about an event on the industry will dictate your content, so figuring out is very important before the email is sent.

The Bottom Line

Other than these, writing a proactive and interesting content like a good blog or a good tweet makes people share it around. The mail also should be focused on the customer and not only at the product- the customer should find it pleasing receiving your email newsletters. Do not forget that the most solid growth comes from simple, repeatable service that is shareable. A good email marketing campaign can very easily go online and can even manifest on social channels such as Twitter and Facebook.