This is a guest post by Hector Cuevas.

Building a list of email subscribers is probably the smartest thing you can do for your business. Before I teach you all about how to burn out your list, let’s talk about the benefits of having one.

Having a list gives you the ability to send traffic to any web page on the internet. Traffic will no longer be an issue if you can control where you send your visitors.

Also, whenever you want to offer something new, you have a list of people that you can get ideas from by surveying them. So, you avoid putting out something that isn’t going to work out.

Now that you know why having a list is so great, let’s talk about..

The 5 Fastest Ways To Burn Out Your Email List

This post is, obviously, talking about the things you SHOULDN’T DO when performing email marketing; but you knew that already. Let’s get started…

#1. Promo After Promo After Promo

This has to be the one I hate the most. Unless I signed up to a discount list like Groupon, Living Social or TigerDirect, getting email offers everyday is really annoying. People usually join email newsletters to get more information of the stuff they like, NOT to be sold something with every email.

Tip: Make sure to offer a lot of great value first before you ever think about making any offers to your subscribers. This will help you lower your unsubscribe rate dramatically.

#2. Recommending Crappy Products

If you want an unresponsive list, send them offers to crappy products that you wouldn’t use yourself. This is almost as bad as sending email offers everyday.

Tip.. If you’re doing affiliate marketing, focus on promoting only those products that you have actually used. Talking about your experiences and results from using a product or service is not selling, it’s sharing - so do more of that.

#3. Not Enough Free Value

Even if you don’t email your subscribers promotions every time you send en email; NOT sending anything at all can also messed up the relationship you have and cause your people to not CARE when you send them stuff.

Tip.. Have a few emails already set up in your autoresponder and space them out for a few weeks, or even months. This will ensure that anyone that joins your list at any given time will have some really good stuff coming their way without you having to do anything. Then, when you send them live email broadcasts with your offers, they’ll be so used to opening your emails, that it will be easier to open those, too.

Note from Ana: take a look at this post and let me know what you think:

• How Often Should You Email Your List?

#4. Misleading Subject Lines

You want to get me off your list? Send me an email that says, “I’m Dying” and then say… “No, I was just kidding, but now that you’re here…”

Misleading subject lines will get people jumping off your newsletter faster than you can say, “unsubscribe here” - But, really.. it’s practically an invitation to your unsubscribe button.

Here’s the tip.. Don’t do it! Make all your email subject lines relevant and consistent with the message inside the email.

#5. Pointless Emails

Ever get one of those emails where half way down you’re thinking, “where is this going?”. Yea, those emails are pointless and annoying; and they’ll make people unsubscribe from your list.

Tip.. Have a point and get to the point as fast as you can. Fast internet connections have made people really impatient, so make sure that whatever you have to say, you say it quick.

On to you…

Keep in mind that if you’re currently doing these things, you’re literally burning money. You’re email list will be the most important asset of your business, so treat them well.

Questions: How do you keep people on your list happy? Are you taking care of your subscribers like you’d like to be taken cared of? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

And as always, you don’t have to share this post, but do it anyway - Ana and I would really appreciate it.

Tagged as: build email list, email marketing

This post brought to you by Hector Cuevas

You can check out Hector's Blog Marketing Blog to learn more about traffic and lead generation. He's also giving away a PDF report, 40 minute audio guide and a 6 part video course. Click here to get access to The Vault.

Hector has written 2 great posts for Traffic Generation Cafe.