Don’t you just love these articles…the best, the worst, the biggest, the ugliest? You know, what wins our vote for the top of the chart. Well, in this article, I’m going to reveal my biggest email marketing mistake. Please note that this is ONLY my opinion and may differ with the opinions of others. Naturally, you will want to test this for yourself and see if your results are the same or worse. Okay, let’s get to the big loser for this one.

The big loser in this case is depersonalization. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the emails you get that start off with “Dear Friend” or “Dear Marketer”. Don’t you just love them? Do you know what I do when I get an email that starts out with dear friend or dear marketer? I toss it in the trash bin. If the person sending that email can’t even bother to do one of several things which are much better, then I want nothing to do with them.

The one thing, and the easiest, is to at least get an autoresponder that allows personalization. That way you can insert something like {firstname} and have the person’s first name appear after the “dear” part. Sure, we know it’s an autoresponder and that they didn’t really type our name in, but at least it shows some effort and doesn’t make us feel like we’re just a nameless prospect.

Ideally, you’d like to send an email to the person that actually is personal. If you can’t do it by using their name, then leave the name out altogether, along with the “dear friend” garbage. A simple “hi” will suffice. But make the content of the email personal. What do I mean by personal?

Show the person on the other end that you REALLY want to help them. Give them an email address where they can contact you and ask questions. Tell them that you REALLY want to hear from them. Show them that you care. For crying out loud, we have so much depersonalization in this world, wouldn’t it be nice to just have somebody show that they care.

To do that, I am leaving my email address at the bottom of this article. Yes, contact me and tell me what you need help with. If I can steer you in the right direction, I will.

Start showing people that you care.

I think you’ll find that your business will greatly profit from it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of not getting your emails delivered, read or opened? Sick of not making any sales from your email marketing efforts? Visit my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/emailmarketing/index.html and get your hands on 5 years of my personal experience with email marketing…experience that has earned me tens of thousands of dollars yearly. Also, if you want to contact me personally, send an email with the subject “Email Marketing Mistakes” to swagen2167@aol.com and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.