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Hi there friend,

You ever have one of those Charlie Brown moments when you just want to scream AAUGH!!!!

That was us last week. Our newsletter on 3 design tips you can try right now, had a pretty embarrassing error. When we were writing about the two different types of font styles, we got our examples mixed up (oops). Helvetica, Tahoma, and Verdana are part of the Sans-serif font family. And Georgia and Times are part of the Serif Font family.

Plus we used opposite font style for the headers and copy in both sections.

Unfortunately Chris and I completely missed this when he wrote and I proofread the newsletter.

It was our reader’s keen eyes that brought this mistake to our attention. 

We’re all human, we make mistakes. And newsflash, this wasn’t our first mistake and it won’t be our last. We put processes in place to catch any mistakes before we send emails, but like in the case of last week's newsletter, we sometimes miss things.

I know we’re not alone. I bet at some point in time you sent an email that had a mistake. If not, that’s great, hopefully you never experience the emotions Chris and I are going through - anger (that we allowed an email to be sent with a mistake) and embarrassment (that you were the ones to bring the mistake to our attention).

Now it’s time to look at the positives. Mistakes aren’t just mistakes, they’re a learning experience. So learn from ours. 

What are the best ways to handle a mistake in your emails?

This really depends on the type of mistake and the severity. Here are a few different types of email mistakes along with examples on how to handle each situation.

Simple mistake - Typo

Common mistakes such as a typo or using the wrong context of a word (for example “they’re” - “their”) or showing the wrong font style examples may happen. Other than embarrassment on your part, these types of mistakes don’t negatively affect your subscribers. So there’s no need to send a follow up email. 

Depending on how egregious you feel the mistake is, you can address it in your next email (like we’re doing here).

Broken or incorrect link

Now this impacts your subscribers, if your email contains a broken or incorrect link to an event, product, or blog you’re going to need to send a correction email. (you don’t have to worry about sending a broken link from your AWeber account, we will identify a broken link for you).

Your subject line should be direct, admit your mistake so your audience knows to disregard the previous email.

I love this example from Pearmill:

They had a fun way of taking ownership for their mistake.

Pearmill didn’t just send the same email with the correct link, they admitted their error in the very first sentence and provided the correct link. Then they took ownership of that mistake a step further, by adding three other famous F-ups (as they put it).

The wrong audience

Accidentally send an email to the wrong list or segment? That can cause some serious confusion. This situation obviously warrant’s a follow up email. 

Take some lessons from Uberflip, who had this very situation happen to them. Their follow up email apologized to subscribers who received information about a webinar they did not RSVP for.

Forgot important information

Your email could be perfect - no mistake, no broken links, but you start receiving emails from your audience looking for additional information. This happens, sometimes we’re just too close to our brand or products that we don’t anticipate questions or that someone might be confused by our content.

Does this warrant a second email? This depends on the questions you’re getting and the level of confusion from your subscribers. 

Here’s a great example from Really Good Emails - they prefer not to send multiple emails to their audience in a single day, but felt a follow up email was necessary to answer a few crucial questions their audience was asking based on their previous email.

How to say sorry in email 

In most situations writing an apology email for your mistake should be straightforward. No need to write a big long email getting into the details of what happened.

Don’t overthink this email, most companies will follow this simple and effective approach. But don’t feel you need to follow this approach. As with the examples above, own up to your mistake and be relatable because mistakes happen to the best of us.

Subject Line:  Be direct in the subject line. You’re sending this email because of a mistake, own the mistake up front.

First sentence: What happened, what was the mistake

Second sentence: Fix the mistake. If you send an incorrect link, give them the correct one. 

Third sentence: Apologize for any inconvenience and give them an email and/or phone number to contact if they have any questions.

Take a look at a few other apology email examples in our blog: How to write an apology email due to a mistake (plus some examples).

Share your story

Do you have your own “email mistake” story? 

Help make Chris and I feel better about our mistake (misery loves company), by sharing your own story on in our blog "How to write an apology email".

What did you think of this email?

❤️❤️❤️ Loved it. Can't wait to get the next one.

💔 I didn't really care for it.

Ensure your emails get delivered

You've probably been hearing a lot about the upcoming new Yahoo and Gmail email sender requirements.

Gmail and Yahoo are putting protections in place to keep inboxes safer and less spammy. You will need to adhere to these requirements to get your email delivered to Gmail and Yahoo inboxes. These new rules will be enforced in February 2024 and apply to all people sending from any email tool, not just AWeber.

On Wednesday, January 17, we had a live webinar where our Director of Deliverability helped guide you through what this actually means, and what you have to do to comply, to ensure you maximize your chances of inbox success! 

Among other things, he talked about why you should have your own professional email address, how and where to buy a domain (if you don't already have one) and how to configure the DKIM and DMARC technical bits for that domain. 

If you didn’t have a chance to join us live, no problem, here’s the recording of the webinar.

Still have questions after watching the webinar, ask your questions in the comments section of the video and Al will answer them. 

Get our latest expert advice and helpful tips 

As always, thanks for reading!

- Sean T. and the rest of the AWeber team