Today I want to share my five biggest email marketing mistakes that I made at the beginning of my coaching business that pushed away TONS of potential clients from buying from me.
I’ve been in the email marketing game since 2009, and we’ve sent thousands of emails for ourselves and our clients, making hundreds of thousands of dollars. I can say for sure that emails are really the best source of getting clients – nothing stands even close to that.
Mistake #1: Sending Only Free Valuable Content
When I started sending emails at the beginning of my coaching business, I was so afraid of being pushy that I sent only free and valuable content. My mom taught me to be a “good guy,” so I poured my heart into those emails, sharing my best strategies and insights, hoping they would notice my expertise and buy.
But they didn’t.
Sporadically, somebody reached out to me and bought, but maybe only one client in a few months. So I decided to learn from the US email marketing gurus to see what I was doing wrong.
I subscribed to their emails, bought email marketing courses, and guess what I noticed? They didn’t send free content – they shared stories, case studies, and promotional emails. And they were making MILLIONS of dollars.
Later I realized that when you’re sharing only free content, you’re attracting freeloaders – people who don’t have money or don’t want to buy from you. They expect only free stuff.
Mistake #2: Creating Over-Designed Emails
Another mistake was email design. I was obsessed with creating beautifully designed emails with perfect images, gorgeous templates, and great formatting.
I always wondered why emails from US marketing gurus looked like a Word document – just plain templates with black text on a white background and zero images.
Later I learned that beautifully designed emails are more likely to land in spam, and that was a revelation for me because it answered why I got such poor open rates.
Another reason was that beautiful designs and images would distract people from the text, and text is the most important thing in emails – text makes them buy.
Mistake #3: Mixing Value and Pitches Poorly
I shifted to another stage of my journey, which was actually another mistake. I combined my free stuff with valuable content, and at the end of the email, I added one sales paragraph about my services and products.
On the good side, I started to get more sales. My sporadic sales turned into periodic sales, and that was great.
But on the flip side, people sent me so much negative feedback:
- “You’re the same like others. You’re obsessed with money”
- “You just want my money and nothing else”
- “You’re sending emails just to sell your crap. Unsubscribe!”
I realized that having even one sentence pitch at the end of the email made my emails come across as promotional. People didn’t perceive my emails as valuable anymore because there was a pitch.
I was DEVASTATED. I didn’t want to send emails. I lost my motivation.
Mistake #4: Inconsistent Sending
For a long period of time, I sent emails inconsistently. I would send emails when I felt inspired, then nothing for weeks. Sometimes I’d feel guilty and send an email, then disappear for a month.
I realized that sending less than once a week didn’t work – I didn’t get any sales.
Interestingly, sometimes I got feedback from my subscribers: “Unsubscribe, I didn’t subscribe to you.” That was weird because they did subscribe! I realized that by sending rarely, people just forgot about me.
Mistake #5: Standalone Emails Without Campaigns
The big problem why my email marketing didn’t work was because I sent standalone, sporadic emails without any goal.
The US marketing gurus approached it absolutely differently – they planned campaigns with specific goals and timeframes.
Each campaign ran from 21 to 30 days and included 7 to 10 emails. They sent one email every three or even two days, depending on the goal.
I thought that was too much. I thought with that approach they were going to lose all their email subscribers. But instead, they made millions of dollars in sales.
Only when I fixed those mistakes did everything come together and start to work.
I had five people buy my course, then 10 people, then 20 people a month, and it kept growing.
I know what you’re going through right now. I felt that pain when you put your heart into your emails and haven’t gotten any response. I know how it feels to question your own abilities and wonder if you’re good enough when your subscribers don’t buy from you.
And I know you have a gift and you deserve to live in abundance by sharing your gift.
So let’s chat. Schedule a complimentary call by the link below and let’s have an honest conversation about your marketing. Let’s make it work for you so your prospects eventually start buying from you, and you start to get what you TRULY DESERVE.