Do’s and Don’ts of Email Marketing – The Complete Guidelines

Email marketing isn’t rocket science, but it’s easy to mess up if you’re not paying attention.

You’ve probably received emails that made you hit unsubscribe faster than you could read the subject line. And maybe a few that actually made you look forward to the next one.

The difference between those two experiences comes down to some pretty straightforward principles. Though honestly, a lot of businesses still get this wrong.

Let’s break down what actually works and what doesn’t in an email marketing campaign.

Email Marketing Campaigns: Do’s and Don’ts

Email marketing remains one of the most powerful tools in your digital marketing arsenal, but it’s also one of the easiest to get wrong. The difference between emails that get opened and acted upon versus those that get deleted or marked as spam often comes down to a few key principles.

Understanding what works and what doesn’t can transform your email list from a dormant database into an engaged community that actually looks forward to hearing from you. Some businesses treat their email list like a megaphone, just blasting messages whenever they feel like it.

Others are so cautious they barely communicate at all. The sweet spot lies somewhere in between, where you’re providing genuine value while also running a sustainable business. This guide walks through the essential dos and don’ts that separate effective email marketing from the kind that makes people reach for the unsubscribe button. These aren’t theoretical concepts either. They’re practical guidelines based on what actually moves the needle.

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7 Do’s of Email Marketing

1: Regularly Sending Your Audience Great Content

Consistency matters more than you might think.

When you show up in someone’s inbox regularly with stuff they actually want to read, you build trust. They start expecting your emails. Maybe even looking for them.

But here’s the thing. Regular doesn’t mean daily if your content can’t support that. It means predictable. Weekly work. Biweekly works. Monthly can work too, though you risk being forgotten.

The “great content” part is where most people stumble. Great doesn’t always mean long or comprehensive. Sometimes it’s just useful. A quick tip that solves a specific problem. A story that connects. Something they can use right now.

Think about what your audience actually needs, not what you want to tell them.

Track what actually gets opened and clicked. Your analytics will tell you what kind of content your audience responds to. Pay attention to those patterns instead of guessing what they want.

Mix up your content formats too. Sometimes send a story. Sometimes send a how-to. Sometimes just share a quick observation or lesson. Variety keeps things interesting without losing consistency in your schedule.

2: Remembering that Your Ideal Community Members Will Stay Subscribed

Unsubscribes sting, sure.

But here’s something that might help. The people who leave probably weren’t your people anyway.

Your ideal audience members, the ones who actually care about what you’re doing, they’ll stick around. They’ll open your emails. They’ll click through. They might even reply sometimes.

Trying to please everyone waters down your message. You end up being bland and forgettable because you’re scared of being too specific or too opinionated.

The goal isn’t a massive list. It’s an engaged list. Quality beats quantity every single time, even though that sounds like advice everyone gives.

Build for the people who stay, not the ones who leave. When you write each email, picture your most engaged subscribers. The ones who reply to your emails or buy from you or share your content. Write for them. So before that aware of how to write even better email copy.

Your engaged subscribers are also your best customers. They’re the ones who’ll buy multiple products, refer friends, and stick around for years. A list of 500 engaged people is worth more than 5,000 disengaged ones.

3: Striking the Perfect Balance of Publishing Valuable Content and Presenting Relevant Offers

This one’s tricky, perhaps trickier than any other point on this list.

You need to provide value without asking for anything in return. But you also have a business to run. You have things to sell.

Some people say follow the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent value, twenty percent promotional. Others swear by different ratios.

Honestly, the exact numbers matter less than whether your offers feel relevant.

If you’ve been helping someone solve a problem for weeks, and then you present a product that solves that same problem better or faster, that’s not pushy. That’s helpful.

But if you’re just throwing random promotions at people without building that context first, yeah, that feels gross.

Make your promotional emails valuable too. Even when you’re selling something, provide context, education, or entertainment. Explain why the product matters. Share a case study. Tell a story about how it helped someone.

Test different approaches and see what your audience responds to. Some audiences are fine with more frequent promotions. Others want mostly educational content with occasional offers. Your specific audience will tell you what they prefer through their behavior.

4: Writing Focused Emails that Include a Single, Strong Call to Action

Every email should have one job.

Maybe it’s getting someone to read a blog post. Maybe it’s getting them to buy something. Maybe it’s just getting them to reply and start a conversation.

But when you try to do three things in one email, people do nothing.

They get overwhelmed. They’re not sure what you actually want them to do. So they close the email and move on with their day.

Pick one thing. Make it clear. Make it easy to do.

Your call to action should be obvious. Not buried in the middle of paragraph seven. Right there, where someone can see it and click without thinking too hard.

Use action-oriented language in your call to action. Instead of “Click here,” try “Get your free guide” or “Start your trial today.” Be specific about what happens when they click.

Repeat your call to action if your email is longer. Put it near the top for people who skim, and again at the bottom for people who read through. Just make sure it’s the same action both times, not two different asks.

5: Injecting Personality Into Your Emails by Using Your Unique Voice

Nobody wants to read corporate speak.

You know what corporate speak looks like. Those emails sound like they were written by a committee and approved by three layers of management.

“We are pleased to announce” and “We hope this message finds you well” and all that stuff that makes you sound like every other business out there.

Write like you talk. Use contractions. Start sentences with “and” or “but” if that’s how you’d say it out loud.

Tell stories. Share opinions, even if they’re kind of controversial. Let people see there’s an actual human behind these emails.

This doesn’t mean being unprofessional. It means being real.

Don’t be afraid to show what you stand for. Your values, your perspective, your way of doing things. That’s what makes you different from every other business in your space.

Let your personality show in subject lines too. That’s often the first impression people get. A boring subject line signals a boring email. A subject line with personality signals there’s something worth opening.

6: Sending Single-Column Emails with Large, Clickable Links

Mobile matters now more than ever.

Most people read emails on their phones. If your email looks like a complicated webpage with multiple columns and tiny text, they’re not going to bother.

Keep it simple. One column. Big text. Links and buttons that are easy to tap with a thumb.

This isn’t just about mobile though. Even on desktop, simpler emails tend to perform better. Less distraction means more focus on your actual message and your call to action.

Fancy designs might look impressive in your email builder, but they rarely translate to better results.

Make your buttons big enough to tap easily. At least 44 pixels tall is a good rule. Nothing’s more frustrating than trying to tap a tiny link on a phone and missing it three times.

Use plenty of white space. Cramming everything together makes emails hard to read on any device. Give your text room to breathe. Break up long paragraphs. Your readers will thank you.

7: Mapping Out Your Email Plan Before You Hit “Send.”

Winging it rarely works long-term.

You might get away with it for a while, but eventually you’ll run out of ideas. Or you’ll send something you regret because you were rushing.

Having a plan doesn’t mean scripting every word weeks in advance. It means knowing what you want to accomplish with your email marketing overall.

What’s your content calendar look like? When are you launching products? What stories do you want to tell?

Maybe you batch-write emails. Maybe you just outline topics for the next month. Whatever works for your process.

The point is thinking ahead instead of panicking every time you need to send something.

Create a content bank of ideas. When inspiration hits, jot down email topics or angles. Then when it’s time to write, you’re not starting from zero. You’ve got a list to pull from.

Plan your email sequences for new subscribers. What should someone receive in their first week? First month? Having these automated emails planned out ensures new people get a consistent experience even when you’re focused on other things.

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7 Don’ts Of Email Marketing

1: Disappearing After You Send Out Your “Welcome” Message

This happens more than it should.

Someone signs up for your list. They get this enthusiastic welcome email about all the great stuff you’re going to send them. And then… nothing for three months.

When you finally do email again, they’ve forgotten who you are. They mark you as spam or unsubscribe immediately.

The welcome email is just the start. You need to follow through. Send that second email. And the third. Keep the momentum going while they still remember why they joined.

Those first few emails after someone subscribes are the most important ones you’ll send them.

Set up at least a basic welcome sequence. Three to five emails that introduce who you are, what you do, and what subscribers can expect. Automate it so every new person gets this experience.

Use that early momentum to build the relationship. New subscribers are usually most engaged right after they join. That’s when they’re most likely to open emails, click links, and potentially buy from you. Don’t waste it.

2: Panicking When People Unsubscribe from Your List

Unsubscribes are normal.

They’re going to happen no matter how good your emails are. People’s interests change. Their email addresses get cluttered. They subscribed during a specific situation that’s no longer relevant.

Sometimes people unsubscribe just to clean up their inbox, not because they dislike you.

Freaking out about unsubscribes leads to bad decisions. You start making your content more generic. You avoid saying anything interesting because you’re scared of alienating anyone.

And that makes your emails worse, which leads to more unsubscribes. It’s a cycle.

Watch your unsubscribe rate, sure. If it suddenly spikes, that’s worth investigating. But a few unsubscribes per email? That’s just how email works.

A typical unsubscribe rate is around one to two percent per email. If you’re in that range, you’re fine. If you’re suddenly hitting five or ten percent, then yeah, something might be off.

Sometimes unsubscribes are actually helpful. They’re clearing out people who weren’t going to buy from you anyway. Better to have a smaller, engaged list than a huge list full of people who never open anything.

3: Over-Promoting or Under-Promoting

Finding this balance is genuinely difficult.

Over-promote, and people feel like they’re just on a sales list. Every email is asking them to buy something. It gets exhausting.

Under-promote and you’re leaving money on the table. You’re providing all this value for free but never giving people a way to go deeper or get more help.

Some email marketers never sell anything directly. They treat their list like it’s too precious to “contaminate” with offers. That’s kind of silly if you’re running a business.

Others treat their list like an ATM. Just keep hitting it for sales whenever they need cash.

Neither extreme works well. Your audience deserves value, but they also deserve the chance to buy things that will help them.

Pay attention to how your audience responds to promotional emails. If your open rates tank every time you send an offer, you might be over-promoting. If people regularly ask how they can work with you or buy from you, you might be under-promoting.

Consider segmenting your list based on behavior. Send more promotional emails to people who’ve bought before or clicked on product links. Send more educational content to people who haven’t shown buying signals yet. Different people want different things from you.

4: Trying To Do Too Much in One Email

This ties back to the focused call to action point.

But it’s worth repeating because people do this constantly. They want to tell you about their new product AND share three blog posts AND invite you to a webinar AND ask you to follow them on social media.

All in one email.

It’s overwhelming. Most people will just delete it without taking any action at all.

One email, one goal. If you have multiple things to share, send multiple emails. Space them out a bit.

Your subscribers can handle more than one email per week if each email is clear and valuable. They can’t handle emails that pull them in five directions at once.

Even if you mention multiple things, make one the clear priority. Maybe you briefly mention an upcoming webinar at the end of an email that’s primarily about a blog post. That’s fine. Just make sure the main message and call to action are obvious.

Long emails aren’t the problem, unfocused emails are. You can write a longer email if it’s all supporting the same point or leading to the same action. Length matters less than clarity of purpose.

5: Being Boring Throughout the Body Content

This might sound harsh, but it’s probably the biggest problem in email marketing.

Most emails are just boring. They don’t say anything interesting. They don’t have a perspective. They’re just information delivered in the most neutral, forgettable way possible.

You’re competing with dozens or hundreds of other emails in someone’s inbox. Being boring means being invisible.

Tell stories. Have opinions. Be specific instead of general. Use examples from actual experience, not hypothetical situations.

Write about things you actually care about, not just topics you think you’re supposed to cover.

Sometimes the emails that perform best are the ones that feel a bit risky. The ones where you’re not entirely sure how people will react.

Boring often comes from playing it too safe. You hedge every statement. You avoid anything that might be remotely controversial. You write like you’re trying not to offend anyone, which usually means you don’t connect with anyone either.

Generic advice is boring. Everyone’s heard “provide value” and “be consistent” a million times. Get specific. Share what actually worked for you or your clients. Give people details they can actually use, not recycled platitudes.

6: Sending Out Emails that Aren’t Mobile-Friendly

We covered this in the dos section, but it’s worth emphasizing again.

If your emails don’t work on mobile, you’re losing a huge chunk of your audience. They’ll try to read it, get frustrated, and give up.

Test your emails on your phone before sending. Actually open them and scroll through. Are the images loading? Are the links easy to click? Is the text readable without zooming?

If you’re using images with text in them, that’s usually a bad sign. The text might be too small on mobile.

If you’re using multi-column layouts, those often break on smaller screens.

Simple almost always wins.

Consider that many people check email while doing other things. They’re on the train, waiting in line, or half-watching TV. Your email needs to work in those distracted moments. Simple formatting helps with that.

Watch out for huge images that take forever to load on mobile data. If someone’s on a slow connection, they might give up before your email even fully appears. Compress your images and use them sparingly.

7: Neglecting to Create a Smart, Workable Email Marketing Strategy

Strategy sounds like a big, intimidating word.

But really it just means having answers to some basic questions. Who are you emailing? What do they care about? What do you want them to do? How does email fit into your overall business?

A lot of people just start sending emails without thinking through these things. They copy what they see other people doing without understanding why it works or doesn’t work.

Your strategy doesn’t need to be complicated. It needs to be intentional.

Maybe you write a simple document outlining your approach. Who’s your audience? What value are you providing? How often are you emailing? What’s your mix of content versus promotional emails?

Then you actually follow that plan instead of making it up as you go.

Email marketing works when you treat it like a real marketing channel, not just an afterthought.

Your strategy should connect to your business goals. If you want to sell more of a specific product, your emails should be warming people up to that purchase. If you want to build authority, your emails should showcase your expertise. Be clear about what you’re trying to accomplish.

Review and adjust your strategy regularly. What worked six months ago might not work now. Your audience grows and changes. Your business evolves. Your email strategy should evolve with it, not stay frozen in whatever you decided on day one.

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Wrapping Up

Email marketing doesn’t have to be complicated.

Most of it comes down to respect. Respect your audience’s time by sending focused, valuable emails. Respect their intelligence by writing like a real person. Respect their inbox by not overwhelming them with constant promotions.

The businesses that succeed with email marketing aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest lists or the fanciest designs. They’re the ones that consistently show up with something worth reading.

They have a plan, but they’re flexible enough to adjust when something isn’t working.

They provide value, but they’re not afraid to make offers when it makes sense.

They have personality, but they’re not trying so hard to be entertaining that they forget to be useful.

Start with the basics in this guide. Pick one or two things to improve in your email marketing right now. Maybe it’s planning out your next month of emails. Maybe it’s simplifying your design. Maybe it’s just committing to a regular schedule.

You don’t need to fix everything at once. Small improvements add up over time. And your subscribers will notice when you start treating email like it matters.

Because it does matter. Email is still one of the most effective ways to build relationships with your audience and grow your business. Just don’t waste the opportunity by being boring, inconsistent, or overly salesy.

Send emails you’d actually want to receive. That’s perhaps the simplest guideline of all.