10 Email Marketing Myths We Are Debunking Now!

As a business owner, you want to grab the attention of your audience and keep it. What better way to do so than with branded messages delivered directly to them? Email is the preferred method of choice to reach the 3.8 billion users around the globe.

However, some brands are shying away from email marketing to pursue alternative venues like Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. They do this without understanding the benefits of email marketing. 

Rumors like “Email is dead” are circulating the net and causing mass confusion about the power it holds for brand marketing.

 The problem is these myths are holding brands back from boosting their conversions and retention rates. About 80% of professionals are already witnessing success with email marketing – what’s the chance your competitors are as well?

 If you’re ready to amplify your marketing strategy and gain a competitive edge, then it’s time to bust the myths surrounding email marketing.

 Let’s get started.

1. Email Marketing is Dead

We have to start with this one because it’s the most prominent rumor whispered behind closed doors. It has some global marketing teams forgoing the use of email as a valid customer outreach tool.

It’s hard to say email marketing is dead when you look at the numbers. For example, you have $44 ROI for every dollar spent. What form of marketing do you know yields results like this?

This could have something to do with the boost in email use on mobile devices, which boasts a 68% email open rate.

2. Social Media Yields Better Conversions

When it comes to business marketing, it’s all about conversion rates. It doesn’t really matter how many clicks and re-tweets your brand receives. If it’s not converting to sales and sign-ups, then your efforts are fruitless.

Unfortunately, a lot of brands are still mesmerized by the numbers behind social media. For example, there are over 2.2 billion Facebook users. The concept of reaching even a small percentage of this group seems astronomical.

However, when you look closer, you’ll see that email trumps Facebook. One study shows internet users are twice as likely to open an email than to interact with your brand on social media.

Some even witness email conversion rates 174% higher than social media. But this isn’t to knock social media marketing – it’s to show how you can enhance your digital marketing strategy using both hand-in-hand.

Imagine the number of conversions you’d receive after combining social media and email marketing. In fact, some brands are already using social media to build their target email lists.

3. Consumers Don’t Want More Emails (Especially Not from Brands!)

No one likes receiving spam messages in their email inbox. But times have changed and email marketing has come a long way from the spammy past it came from.

Today, marketing objectives are all about personalization. Consumers are opting in to receive emails from brands.

But they don’t want just anything sent to their inbox – they’re expecting to receive content that resonates with them.

Studies show personalized emails receive 6x higher transaction rates. However, only 70% of brands are personalizing their email campaigns. There are different ways you can segment your campaigns to better personalize your emails.

For instance, you want to keep track of purchases so you can send customers product or service recommendations. It’s also a good idea to segment your prospects, new customers and loyal customers.

4. Subject Lines Impact Email Open Rates

This myth is only somewhat true. The subject line you use can help get users to open your emails, but there’s a higher probability when the user recognizes the sender’s name.

About 64% of subscribers open emails after seeing the sender’s name. This is followed by 47% of users who open emails based on the subject line.

This is why it’s essential to have your company name displayed as the sender. If your brand and relationship marketing are doing well, then your recognition should help boost your open rates. Also, it helps if you’re reaching out to them regularly so they don’t forget your brand.

Studies also show it takes seven to 13 touch points before a consumer converts. However you must pay attention to email frequency as you don't want to come off as spammy. Spammy email marketing usually just end up in the spam folder and no one gets to read them. This is another reason why email marketing should be on your radar. It’s a lot easier to create these touch points with prospects.

But what’s more telling is that adding the recipient’s name to the subject line further boosts email open rates by 18.3%. It’s easier to do this when you have a CRM to collect and manage this data for you.

5. Informational Content is What Your Subscribers Want

Plenty of “recipes” are floating around, claiming to help brands create high-converting email campaigns. Then when the "ingredients" don't work, businesses throw the whole email marketing pie out the window. However, making your email relevant, concise, and free of spam words can help your open rate and your reply rate.

6. Email Automation Software is a Waste of Time & Money

If you ask some marketers and brands, they'll tell you that automation software is too expensive and takes too much time. However, if you're taking a long time to set up your email automation, then the software is the issue, not the process.

Finding the right automation product is key to streamlining your email marketing. Once you do, studies say you can witness a 10% average increase in sales pipeline contribution.

Email automation lets you easily segment and personalize your campaigns to boost conversions. You can use several services and products to automate your email marketing process.

According to MailChimp, email recipients are 75% more likely to view emails sent from segmented campaigns. In addition, subscribers love personalized emails, which can mean higher conversions and sales for your brand.

7. Shorter Email Subject Lines Get More Clicks

There’s plenty of recipes floating around that claim to help brands cook up high-converting email campaigns. Then when the “ingredients” don’t work, businesses throw the whole email marketing pie out the window.

This is why it’s important to bust popular email marketing myths like this one. Shorter marketing email subject lines don’t necessarily work all the time. Sure, it may work for one industry or brand, but may not for another. That’s because it’s about what the subject line says, not so much the number of characters it has.

It’s commonly recommended that subject lines and titles be no more than 60 characters to increase email opens.

Yet, there are cases where 61-70 characters can boost click-through rates. At the end of the day, it depends on your industry and the audience your marketing strategy is targeting (as well as the type of topics you cover). This will require you to do lots of A/B testing to determine this.

8. The Best Time of Day to Send an Email Is…

If you browse the web, you'll find countless surveys, graphs, charts, and infographics, dictating the best time of the day and week to send emails.

Some say Tuesdays receive the highest open rates, while others say Thursdays. Others claim 3 pm is the best time of day to send emails, while others state mornings yield the best email open rates.

The problem with these philosophies is that it indicates a cookie-cutter email campaign for all email subscribers worldwide. It just isn't true. Think about yourself; some Mondays, you open promotional emails in the morning and others in the evening.

People are humans, not robots. You may find your promotional emails get more opens on Monday mornings, while your informational content gets more emails on Friday evenings. Some brands found that their subscribers opened their emails two days after being sent. You'll have to split-test your campaigns to determine what works best for your brand.

You also must factor in brands that follow these concepts to send emails simultaneously. This means your email will get pushed down, making it less likely to be opened immediately (or any day after).

9. More Subscribes Equals Better ROI

If this were true, you could place your ads in front of any audience and get tons of sales. However, we all know this is untrue. So why do we believe a long list of email subscribers will boost ROI?

The truth is that your email address list is only as good as the quality of the leads on it. Your open and click-through rates will soar if you're collecting highly-targeted leads. It's all about the quality of your leads, not the quantity.

In a nutshell, it's better to have a 20% open rate with 1,000 high-quality subscribers than a 2% open rate with 5,000 low-quality subscribers. Even if you're getting high open rates from your low-quality leads, this doesn't mean it'll translate to a high conversion rate.

10. Unsubscribes Mean Your Campaign’s Failing

No email marketing campaign doesn't get unsubscribes. So if this were true, every brand is failing in email marketing.

Of course, this isn't true.

What some brands find surprising is that unsubscribes are a good thing. They're helping to clean up your email list, making it more efficient. Why would you want subscribers to stick around if they're never going to become a customer?

These subscribers would only drive down your email campaign. When folks aren't opening your emails or clicking on your links in the email, then it hurts your stats. By them unsubscribing, it helps save you time and effort weeding them out for a re-engagement campaign.

Just try not to go on a hiatus too long because when you return, your unsubscribe rate may increase once you try to reconnect.

Stop Allowing Myths to Hold Back Your Brand

Today, you should use all the channels you can to build an effective marketing strategy. Now that you see you have nothing to fear about email marketing, it's time to add it to your branding efforts.

You can generate more leads and sales with the right strategy and tools. If you'd like to learn more about making this happen for your brand, gardenpatch can help you take the next steps toward a successful email marketing campaign!

Learn how to make email marketing work for your business. Talk to one of our growth specialists at gardenpatch today!