Drip campaigns are powerful tools in any communication strategy, designed to nurture leads, onboard new customers, or re-engage past clients through a series of automated, pre-written messages. However, even the most well-intentioned campaigns can fall flat or even backfire if common pitfalls are not carefully avoided. Understanding these frequent missteps is crucial for anyone aiming to build effective and engaging communication sequences. Addressing these common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid can significantly improve engagement rates, foster stronger customer relationships, and ultimately drive desired outcomes.
Successfully navigating the complexities of automated messaging requires a strategic approach, where careful planning and continuous refinement are paramount. Many businesses inadvertently make fundamental errors that undermine their efforts, leading to low open rates, high unsubscribe rates, and missed opportunities. By identifying and proactively correcting these issues, you can transform your drip sequences from generic blasts into highly effective, personalized journeys that resonate deeply with your audience. Here, we delve into the most common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid, offering insights and actionable advice to help you craft compelling and impactful message series.
Failing to Define Clear Goals
One of the most fundamental yet common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid is launching a sequence without clearly defined objectives. A drip campaign without a specific purpose is like sailing without a destination; you might expend a lot of effort but end up nowhere meaningful. Without a clear goal, it’s impossible to tailor your content, segment your audience effectively, or measure the success of your efforts. This oversight often leads to a series of disjointed messages that fail to guide recipients toward a desired action.
Establishing concrete, measurable goals from the outset is non-negotiable for any effective drip campaign. For instance, instead of a vague goal like “increase engagement,” aim for something specific such as “increase product demo sign-ups by 15% within three months” or “reduce customer churn among new users by 10% through a 7-day onboarding sequence.” These specific targets provide a roadmap for your content creation and campaign structure. Each email in the sequence should contribute directly to achieving these overarching objectives, creating a cohesive and purposeful journey for the recipient.
The consequences of vague or absent goals are far-reaching. Without a target, you cannot determine what content is relevant, when to send messages, or even who to send them to. This often results in generic, one-size-fits-all emails that lack impact and personalization, alienating your audience. For example, a software company that merely wants “more users” might send general product updates to everyone, including those who have already purchased, leading to frustration and unsubscribes. Conversely, a company aiming to “convert trial users to paying subscribers within 14 days” can craft a series of emails highlighting specific features, offering tutorials, and demonstrating value propositions, all geared towards that singular objective. Understanding these pitfalls helps to avoid common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
To set effective goals, consider using the SMART framework: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This ensures your objectives are well-defined and trackable. For example, if your goal is to nurture new leads, your drip campaign might focus on educating them about your brand’s unique selling points, leading to a trial sign-up or a consultation request. Conversely, a post-purchase drip campaign might aim to foster loyalty by providing helpful tips, offering exclusive content, or requesting product reviews. By aligning every message with a clear, strategic goal, you can ensure your drip campaigns are not just sending emails, but genuinely moving the needle for your business. This critical first step helps eliminate many common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Poor Audience Segmentation
Sending the same message to everyone on your list is a classic example of common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid. Your audience is not a monolith; it comprises individuals with diverse needs, interests, and stages in their journey with your brand. Failing to segment your audience effectively means your messages will often be irrelevant to a significant portion of recipients, leading to decreased engagement, higher unsubscribe rates, and a negative perception of your brand. A generic blast rarely achieves the desired impact, as it fails to acknowledge the unique context of each recipient.
Effective audience segmentation is about understanding your contacts on a deeper level and tailoring your communication accordingly. Instead of a single list, consider dividing your audience based on demographics (age, location), psychographics (interests, values), past behavior (previous purchases, website activity, email opens), lead source, or their position in the customer lifecycle (new lead, trial user, loyal customer, churn risk). For instance, a retail brand shouldn’t send discount codes for baby products to customers who have only ever purchased electronics. This mismatch is a clear illustration of common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
The benefits of proper segmentation are substantial. Research consistently shows that segmented campaigns can lead to significantly higher open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates compared to unsegmented campaigns. When recipients receive content that is directly relevant to them, they are far more likely to engage with it. For example, a company selling fitness equipment could segment its audience into categories like “beginners looking to lose weight,” “experienced athletes,” and “yoga enthusiasts.” Each segment would then receive a drip campaign specifically designed with their unique goals and product interests in mind. This targeted approach transforms a generic email into a valuable resource, making it one of the most effective strategies to avoid common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Conversely, poor segmentation not only reduces engagement but can also damage your brand’s reputation. Recipients bombarded with irrelevant emails may start marking your messages as spam, leading to deliverability issues and a diminished sender reputation. Imagine a subscriber who signed up for updates on a specific product category but continuously receives emails about unrelated items; their patience will wear thin, and an unsubscribe is almost inevitable. To truly succeed, it’s essential to invest time in analyzing your audience data and creating meaningful segments. This proactive approach ensures your drip campaigns are perceived as helpful and timely, rather than intrusive, thereby preventing some of the most common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Lack of Personalization
Beyond basic segmentation, a glaring omission and one of the most common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid is the failure to adequately personalize messages. Many marketers believe that simply using a recipient’s first name constitutes personalization, but true personalization goes far deeper. It involves leveraging data to deliver content, offers, and experiences that are uniquely relevant to each individual, making them feel seen and valued. Without this deeper level of tailoring, messages can feel cold, generic, and easily dismissed, failing to forge a genuine connection with the recipient.
Genuine personalization extends to various aspects of your drip campaign. This includes recommending products based on past purchases or browsing history, providing content relevant to their specific industry or role, referencing previous interactions, or even adjusting the tone and language to match their likely demographic. For example, if a customer previously bought running shoes, a personalized drip campaign could follow up with articles on running tips, introduce complementary products like athletic apparel or smartwatches, or even offer a discount on their next pair of shoes after a certain period. This level of detail transforms a standard communication into a highly relevant and appreciated interaction, directly addressing common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
The impact of personalization is undeniable. Studies show that personalized emails generate significantly higher transaction rates and revenue per email compared to non-personalized ones. When a message directly speaks to a recipient’s needs or interests, it cuts through the noise of their inbox, demanding attention. Conversely, a lack of personalization can make your emails feel mass-produced, leading recipients to believe you don’t truly understand or care about their individual journey. This can quickly erode trust and engagement, contributing to the list of common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
However, it’s also important to avoid “creepy” personalization, where the use of data feels intrusive or overly familiar. The key is to use data in a way that provides value and convenience to the recipient, rather than making them feel like their every move is being tracked for sales purposes. Transparency and relevance are crucial. Tools and platforms today offer sophisticated capabilities to collect and utilize behavioral data, allowing for dynamic content adjustments within emails. By moving beyond mere name insertion and embracing truly contextual personalization, businesses can significantly enhance the effectiveness of their drip campaigns and avoid some of the most common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Irrelevant or Low-Quality Content
Even with perfect segmentation and personalization, delivering irrelevant or low-quality content is undoubtedly one of the most common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid. The best timing and targeting in the world won’t save a campaign if the messages themselves are unengaging, uninformative, or fail to provide any real value to the recipient. In today’s crowded digital landscape, attention is a precious commodity, and if your content doesn’t immediately capture and hold it, your emails will quickly be relegated to the trash folder.
High-quality content is characterized by its relevance, clarity, conciseness, and value proposition. Each email in your drip sequence should have a specific purpose and offer something beneficial to the reader. This could be useful information, an exclusive offer, an insightful tip, an entertaining story, or a solution to a problem they might be facing. For example, an onboarding drip campaign for a software product should provide clear, step-by-step guides, video tutorials, or links to help articles, making the user’s initial experience smoother and more productive. Conversely, a campaign that merely rehashes basic product features without context or benefit quickly loses its appeal, becoming one of the common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
The consequences of irrelevant or low-quality content are severe. Recipients who consistently receive unhelpful emails are more likely to ignore future messages, mark them as spam, or unsubscribe entirely. This not only diminishes the immediate effectiveness of your campaign but also negatively impacts your sender reputation and deliverability rates. Furthermore, it reflects poorly on your brand, suggesting a lack of understanding or care for your audience’s needs. Imagine signing up for updates on sustainable living but only receiving generic sales pitches for unrelated products; frustration would quickly set in. This is a prime example of common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
To ensure your content is always top-notch, continually put yourself in your audience’s shoes. What questions do they have? What problems are they trying to solve? What information would genuinely help them at this specific stage of their journey? Map your content to different stages of the customer lifecycle – awareness, consideration, decision, retention – ensuring each message is appropriate for where the recipient stands. Use clear, engaging language, compelling visuals, and a consistent brand voice. Prioritize providing value over making a hard sell in every email. By focusing on creating genuinely useful and engaging content, you can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your drip campaigns and steer clear of these common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Inconsistent Sending Frequency
Finding the right balance in sending frequency is a delicate act, and getting it wrong is another one of the common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid. Sending emails too frequently can overwhelm recipients, leading to irritation, fatigue, and ultimately, unsubscribes. Conversely, sending too infrequently can cause your brand to be forgotten, diminish the momentum of your nurturing efforts, and allow leads to go cold. The ideal frequency is not a one-size-fits-all solution; it depends heavily on your audience, the purpose of the campaign, and the industry.
Over-sending is often perceived as spammy. When an inbox is constantly flooded with messages from the same sender, especially if the content isn’t highly personalized or crucial, recipients quickly develop “email fatigue.” They might start deleting your emails unread, or worse, mark them as spam. Research indicates that sending emails too often is a leading cause of unsubscribes. For example, a welcome series might require daily emails for the first few days, but a long-term nurturing campaign might be better suited for weekly or bi-weekly messages. Failing to adjust the frequency based on context is a key example of common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
On the other hand, under-sending means missed opportunities. If a prospect shows interest in your product but then hears nothing for weeks, they might forget about your brand or turn to a competitor who maintains more consistent communication. For time-sensitive campaigns, like event registrations or limited-time offers, infrequent communication can mean prospects miss out on crucial information and deadlines. The goal is to remain top-of-mind without becoming a nuisance, striking a balance that keeps your audience engaged and progressing through their journey. This strategic approach helps address common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
To determine the optimal frequency, consider several factors: the complexity of your product or service, the length of your sales cycle, the typical buying journey of your customer, and feedback from your audience (e.g., open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates). A/B testing different sending schedules can provide valuable insights into what resonates best with your specific audience. You might test daily versus every other day for an initial onboarding sequence, or weekly versus bi-weekly for a content nurturing series. It’s also crucial to allow recipients to set their own preferences for email frequency if possible, giving them control and reducing the likelihood of unsubscribes. Ultimately, consistent monitoring and adjustment are key to avoiding this crucial one of the common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Weak or Missing Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
A campaign without clear guidance for the recipient is like a map without an ‘X’ marking the treasure. One of the most common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid is having weak, vague, or entirely missing calls-to-action (CTAs). The primary purpose of many drip campaign emails is to prompt a specific action from the recipient, whether it’s clicking a link, downloading a resource, making a purchase, or signing up for a demo. If your emails fail to clearly articulate what you want the reader to do next, they are likely to do nothing at all.
A strong CTA is unambiguous, action-oriented, and stands out within the email. It tells the reader exactly what to expect when they click and motivates them to take that step. Instead of generic phrases like “Click Here” or “Learn More,” consider specific and benefit-driven CTAs such as “Download Your Free Guide Now,” “Start Your 30-Day Trial,” “Schedule a Demo,” or “Shop Our New Collection.” The language should be compelling and create a sense of urgency or curiosity when appropriate. Failing to optimize your CTAs is a critical oversight, and one of the most significant common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Common CTA mistakes include having too many CTAs in a single email, which can overwhelm the reader and lead to analysis paralysis. When presented with too many options, recipients often choose none. Another error is burying the CTA within a lengthy paragraph or making it visually indistinct, blending it in with the rest of the email content. CTAs should be prominent, ideally using contrasting colors, bolded text, or dedicated buttons, ensuring they are easily discoverable on any device. For instance, an email promoting a new webinar should have one clear, bold button saying “Register for the Webinar Here!” rather than several links scattered throughout the text.
Every email in your drip campaign should have a primary goal, and its CTA should align directly with that goal. If an email’s purpose is to educate, the CTA might be “Read More on Our Blog.” If the purpose is to convert, it might be “Buy Now.” It’s also beneficial to reinforce the primary CTA with secondary, less prominent CTAs if relevant, such as linking to social media profiles or a general contact page. Regularly testing different CTA wording, colors, and placements can significantly impact conversion rates. By ensuring your calls-to-action are clear, compelling, and strategically placed, you can effectively guide your recipients through their journey and avoid some of the most pervasive common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Neglecting Mobile Optimization
In an era where smartphones are ubiquitous, neglecting mobile optimization is a critical oversight and one of the most common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid. A vast majority of people check their emails on mobile devices, with some estimates suggesting over half of all email opens occur on a mobile phone or tablet. If your drip campaign emails are not designed to be responsive and easily readable on smaller screens, you risk alienating a significant portion of your audience, leading to frustration, immediate deletion, or simply ignoring your messages.
What happens when an email isn’t mobile-optimized? Text can appear tiny and require excessive pinching and zooming, images might break or load incorrectly, layouts can become distorted, and call-to-action buttons may be too small to tap accurately with a thumb. This creates a highly frustrating user experience, and recipients are unlikely to persevere with an email that is difficult to navigate. The immediate consequence is a high bounce rate, low click-through rates, and ultimately, a missed opportunity to engage. This kind of oversight clearly contributes to common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Key elements of mobile optimization include using responsive design, which automatically adjusts the email’s layout, images, and text size to fit the screen it’s being viewed on. This ensures a consistent and readable experience across all devices. Additionally, opt for a single-column layout, use larger font sizes for body text (typically 14-16px) and headlines, and ensure that buttons and links are generously spaced and large enough for easy tapping (at least 44×44 pixels). Images should be optimized for faster loading times on mobile data connections, and their file sizes kept to a minimum without sacrificing quality. Neglecting these details adds to the list of common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Before launching any drip campaign, always preview and test your emails on various mobile devices and email clients. Most email marketing platforms offer built-in preview tools that simulate how your email will look on different screens. Send test emails to yourself and colleagues to catch any display issues. By prioritizing a seamless mobile experience, you demonstrate respect for your audience’s preferences and ensure your messages are accessible and engaging, regardless of how they are viewed. This meticulous attention to detail is vital for overcoming common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Not Testing and Optimizing
The “set it and forget it” mentality is a perilous approach in email marketing and stands as one of the most common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid. A drip campaign, once launched, should not be considered a finished product. It requires continuous monitoring, testing, and optimization to ensure it remains effective and relevant over time. Without this iterative process, campaigns can quickly become stale, underperform, or even become counterproductive as audience preferences and market conditions evolve.
Testing is the backbone of optimization. This involves A/B testing (or split testing) various elements of your emails to see which versions perform better. What should you test? Practically everything:
- Subject Lines:Â Different lengths, emojis, personalization, questions vs. statements.
- Sender Name:Â A person’s name vs. a company name.
- Email Content:Â Different headlines, body copy variations, lengths, tone, and visual elements.
- Call-to-Actions (CTAs):Â Wording, color, placement, size.
- Send Times and Days:Â Which days of the week or times of day yield the highest open and click rates.
- Number of Emails in a Series:Â Experiment with longer or shorter sequences.
- Intervals Between Emails:Â Daily, every other day, weekly, etc.
For example, a company running an onboarding drip campaign might A/B test two different subject lines for their welcome email: one focusing on a benefit (“Unlock Your Full Potential with [Product Name]”) and another on a question (“Ready to Get Started with [Product Name]?”). Analyzing open rates would reveal which approach resonates more. This constant refinement is key to avoiding common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Ignoring the data gleaned from these tests is as bad as not testing at all. After running a test, you must analyze the results, draw conclusions, and implement the winning variations into your live campaign. This might mean adjusting your email copy, refining your segmentation strategy, or altering your sending schedule. For instance, if data shows that emails sent on Tuesdays at 10 AM have significantly higher engagement than those sent on Fridays afternoon, you should adjust your scheduling accordingly. This data-driven decision-making is crucial for overcoming common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Furthermore, successful drip campaigns are not static. They should be regularly reviewed, perhaps quarterly or bi-annually, to ensure the content is still accurate, offers are still valid, and the overall strategy aligns with current business goals and audience expectations. Market trends change, products evolve, and customer needs shift. A campaign that was highly effective a year ago might be outdated today. By embracing a culture of continuous testing and optimization, you can ensure your drip campaigns remain potent tools for engagement and conversion, proactively addressing a major source of common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Ignoring Compliance Regulations
In the realm of digital communication, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Ignoring compliance regulations is a serious and potentially costly error, making it one of the most critical common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid. Email marketing is governed by various laws designed to protect consumer privacy and prevent spam, such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe, CAN-SPAM Act in the United States, CASL (Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation), and various other country-specific regulations. Non-compliance can lead to hefty fines, reputational damage, and even legal action.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for instance, imposes strict rules on how personal data is collected, processed, and stored for individuals within the European Economic Area. Key requirements include obtaining explicit consent for data collection and marketing communications, providing clear information on how data will be used, and offering easy ways for individuals to access, correct, or delete their data. For email drip campaigns, this means ensuring your opt-in processes are transparent and unambiguous, and that you have a verifiable record of consent. Failing to adhere to these principles constitutes a significant risk and is a prime example of common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
The CAN-SPAM Act, while less stringent than GDPR, still lays out essential rules for commercial emails in the U.S. These include not using false or misleading header information, not using deceptive subject lines, disclosing that the message is an advertisement, providing a valid physical postal address, and offering a clear and easy way for recipients to opt out of future emails. Furthermore, opt-out requests must be honored promptly. Many email marketing platforms provide built-in functionalities to help manage these aspects, but ultimately, the responsibility for compliance rests with the sender.
Beyond legal penalties, non-compliance can severely damage your brand’s reputation and trust with your audience. Receiving unsolicited emails or finding it difficult to unsubscribe creates a negative perception, leading to higher spam complaints and a tarnished image. This, in turn, can harm your email deliverability rates, as internet service providers and email clients are more likely to filter messages from senders with poor reputations. To truly avoid these common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid, it’s imperative to stay informed about relevant regulations in all regions where you send emails, conduct regular audits of your practices, and ensure your consent collection and unsubscribe processes are robust and user-friendly. Prioritizing legal and ethical practices builds a foundation of trust that is essential for long-term success.
Over-Automation and Lack of Human Touch
While automation is the core of drip campaigns, an over-reliance on it without any human touch is another one of the common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid. The beauty of drip campaigns lies in their ability to scale personalized communication, but there’s a fine line between efficient automation and robotic coldness. When every interaction feels automated, impersonal, and formulaic, it can strip away authenticity and prevent the formation of genuine human connections, making your brand seem distant and uncaring.
Over-automation can manifest in several ways. This could involve sending a relentless series of emails without any apparent trigger or context, failing to respond to specific user actions in a timely or relevant manner, or neglecting opportunities for direct, one-on-one communication where it would be most impactful. For example, if a customer reaches out with a complex support query, an automated drip message pushing a new product might feel incredibly frustrating and out of touch. In such cases, a human response is not just preferred but essential. This failure to differentiate between automated and human-needed interactions is a critical one of the common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
The goal is to balance the efficiency of automation with moments of genuine interaction. Consider where a human touch can elevate the customer experience. This might involve a personalized follow-up call after a high-value lead downloads a specific whitepaper, a handwritten note accompanying a first purchase, or a direct email from a sales representative offering assistance to a user stuck in a trial phase. These interventions, while not scalable to every single interaction, can be strategically deployed for key moments in the customer journey, reinforcing the idea that there are real people behind the brand.
Furthermore, even within automated emails, strive for a tone that is warm, empathetic, and conversational rather than stiff and corporate. Use language that sounds like it’s coming from a person, not a machine. Incorporate elements that humanize your brand, such as employee spotlights, behind-the-scenes glimpses, or stories from satisfied customers. The most effective drip campaigns use automation as a tool to enhance human connection, not replace it. By carefully integrating strategic human touches and maintaining an authentic tone, you can prevent your campaigns from falling into the trap of over-automation, avoiding one of the crucial common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Conclusion
Mastering drip campaigns involves more than just setting up an automated sequence; it requires foresight, empathy, and a commitment to continuous improvement. By consciously addressing the common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid, businesses can transform their automated messages from generic communications into powerful, personalized journeys that truly resonate with their audience. From defining clear goals and segmenting meticulously, to crafting high-quality, mobile-optimized content with compelling CTAs, and adhering to strict compliance regulations, each step is crucial.
Remember that effective drip campaigns are not static; they evolve with your audience and your business. The journey to successful automated communication demands ongoing testing and optimization, ensuring your messages remain relevant and impactful. Furthermore, striking the right balance between automation and the invaluable human touch ensures your brand consistently builds genuine connections, rather than simply sending out automated blasts. By proactively mitigating these common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid, you can nurture stronger relationships, drive greater engagement, and achieve your strategic objectives with remarkable efficiency and authenticity.
—
FAQ
Q: What are the most critical mistakes to avoid in drip campaigns?
A: The most critical common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid include failing to define clear goals, poor audience segmentation, a lack of personalization, sending irrelevant or low-quality content, inconsistent sending frequency, weak calls-to-action, neglecting mobile optimization, not testing and optimizing campaigns, ignoring compliance regulations (like GDPR or CAN-SPAM), and over-automating without a human touch. Avoiding these pitfalls is essential for campaign success.
Q: How can I ensure my drip campaign content is relevant?
A: To ensure relevance, you must thoroughly understand your audience through segmentation, tailoring content to their specific needs, interests, and stage in the customer journey. Provide value, solve problems, and avoid generic sales pitches. Constantly review and update your content based on performance data and feedback. This strategic approach helps to avoid common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Q: Is it really necessary to personalize every email?
A: While not every single element needs deep personalization, a strong level of personalization is highly recommended. Beyond using a recipient’s name, leverage data like past behavior, preferences, and demographics to deliver highly relevant content and offers. This makes messages more engaging and effective, combating one of the common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid where messages feel generic.
Q: How often should I send emails in a drip campaign?
A: There’s no universal answer, as optimal sending frequency varies by audience, industry, and campaign goal. Sending too often leads to fatigue, while too infrequently leads to being forgotten. It’s crucial to A/B test different frequencies and monitor engagement metrics (open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates) to find the sweet spot for your specific audience. This iterative process prevents one of the common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Q: What are the legal risks of ignoring compliance regulations in drip campaigns?
A: Ignoring compliance regulations such as GDPR or CAN-SPAM can lead to severe penalties, including substantial fines, legal actions, and significant damage to your brand’s reputation. Key requirements often involve obtaining explicit consent, providing clear unsubscribe options, and protecting user data. Adhering to these laws is not just a legal obligation but also builds trust, helping you avoid significant common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
Q: Why is testing and optimization so important for drip campaigns?
A: Testing and optimization are crucial because what works today might not work tomorrow. Continuously A/B testing elements like subject lines, content, CTAs, and send times allows you to identify what resonates best with your audience, leading to improved engagement and conversion rates. Without this, your campaigns risk becoming stale and ineffective, which is one of the most significant common drip campaigns mistakes to avoid.
