Editor’s Note: This is the first in a two-part series.

Data released last year by the research firm Return Path shows the average individual receives more than 400 commercial emails per month. These are emails from businesses selling products and services versus email from colleagues, friends or family.

It’s no wonder so many of these promotional emails are immediately discarded.

They just aren’t breaking through all the noise competing for recipient attention.

Before you blame the channel, consider this: Experian finds email campaigns return on average $44 for every dollar spent.

That’s not surprising, considering how inexpensive, highly targeted and efficient email can be – when executed well, that is.

If your email marketing just isn’t breaking through, it may be time to reassess your approach.

How many of these 10, slightly tongue-in-cheek, deadly sins are you committing in your email campaigns?

Sin #10 – Send only promotional emails with little regard for educating or providing value to your readers to build trust, form a relationship or establish your brand as having subject matter expertise.

Sin #9 – Don’t use a quality email delivery service. It costs money, and you’re marketing to make money and not spend it. Forget a proper unsubscribe option, despite requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act. Who wants opt-outs anyway? And by all means, advertise every recipient’s email address in the CC line to encourage those pesky “reply to all” emails.

Sin #8 – Make every email reminiscent of school days – when you were rewarded for maximum word count – by including everything you want to say, versus piquing interest and driving traffic to your site for additional material.

Sin #7 – Ignore the open and click-through data indicating what your readers are actually interested in, because you’re not planning to adapt your content anyway.

Sin #6 – Design for desktop viewership only, versus optimizing your campaign to view correctly on a tablet or mobile phone.

Sin #5 – Litter your email with way too many links. This approach will trigger spam filters and, even if your email does make it through by some miracle, recipients will often view it as spam and delete it before giving it a chance.

Sin #4 – Take an “ask forgiveness” versus “ask permission” approach to adding people to your email database.

Sin #3 – Use dreadfully boring subject lines (e.g., July Newsletter) or overly promotional subjects (Buy Now – 50% Off).

Sin #2 – Email stock content provided by vendors or partners with little to no customization to save time and money.

And Sin #1 – Send an email campaign twice a day or every time you have an unexpressed thought in need of an outlet.

Guilty of any or all of these deadly email sins?

Check back next week for best practices to help you abandon and overcome your indulgent ways.

Lori Turner-Wilson is an award-winning columnist and managing partner of RedRover Sales & Marketing, www.redrovercompany.com, with offices in Memphis and Nashville. You can follow RedRover on Twitter (@redrovercompany and @loriturner) and Facebook (facebook.com/redrovercompany).