By Richard Buss

Everybody makes mistakes. They can be embarrassing, but most of the time a simple “oops” isn’t fatal.

Unless you’re an email marketer. Then, what may seem like tiny errors can give your business a big black eye — or worse, land you in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission or other regulators.

Let’s talk about some common email errors and ways to avoid them.

Give good copy.

Misspellings, repeated words or phrases and awkward sentences creep into all written communication from time to time. Because email is a rapid, often informal, contact method, most people will forgive typos in one-on-one electronic missives.

Commercial marketing messages, however, need to be as pristine as they can be, not only to avoid embarrassment, but also to prevent costly miscommunication. Transposed digits in a price, for example, can create an expensive “teaching moment.” Typos in a subject line can have a drastic effect on the number of opens an email receives.

Fix: Proofread more than once. If possible, have more than one person check the copy before the email is sent.

Make them an offer they can’t refuse.

No matter how good an offer, if it’s not of interest to the email recipient, you’ve just wasted your time and theirs. Repeated mailing of irrelevant offers will cause list members to unsubscribe — or worse, report you as a spammer.

Fix: Segment your email list by consumer interest, and send each segment only marketing messages in which members have expressed an interest.

Time is of the essence.

Little aggravates email recipients more than salivating over an offer they can’t wait to take advantage of, only to reach the call-to-action and realize the promotion already ended. Make this mistake even once, and list members will drop their subscription like a hot rock.

Fix: Double-check all copy and artwork to make sure there are no “leftovers” from previous campaigns. Be especially diligent about dates and discounts.

You break it, they won’t buy it.

Broken links are at the top of most email recipients’ list of frustrations, and frustrating readers can be deadly. Sending them to the wrong page — or a page that doesn’t exist at all — not only will cost you sales, but also may cost you subscribers.

Fix: Again, double-check everything. Click all the links in each marketing email before sending it, even if you’re reusing a link that worked last month. Like everything else, websites are subject to breakage.

Make sure readers take things personally.

Nothing says “I value your business, you faceless, nameless schmuck” more than a subject line or internal greeting with visible code or an impersonal address. If nothing else, “%username%, have we got a deal for you!” or “Dear [firstname]” make your operation look careless. Readers may suspect carelessness with email marketing could reflect equal carelessness with the product.

Fix: If you allow subscribers to omit some information on sign-up forms, pick a default setting for those data fields so you don’t end up with naked code parading around in public. Also, always, always send test emails internally before finalizing a campaign. Others among your crew may spot coding and other errors before the public sees them.

Richard Buss is the senior account manager for YNOT Mail and director of products and services for YNOT Group LLC.