Digital marketing trends change faster than you can say “search engine optimization.”
Keeping up with these trends is often a challenge for marketers, much less business owners. And email marketing is no exception.
When done incorrectly, email marketing is more of a hassle than an effective growth strategy. But with the right practices, email marketing has amazing potential for strong ROI. So, let’s go MythBusters on some email marketing misconceptions holding you back.
Myth #1: Email marketing is dead.
With a new social media site launched every year, it’s only natural to assume that the oldest method of digital marketing is useless. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Email marketing is not only alive, but it’s currently the most effective method of marketing communication. According to one McKinsey iConsumer survey, email marketing acquires more new customers for businesses than both Twitter and Facebook combined.
Myth #2: Unsubscribes are bad.
Generally, marketers brag about low numbers of unsubscribes. It’s thought to be a sign your email campaign’s working. But unsubscribes actually aren’t always a bad thing.
If people don’t want to read your emails, they’re unlikely to buy from you. Unsubscribes are an automatic way of cleaning out your list so that it only includes qualified leads.
Myth #3: The same email can only be sent once.
You don’t want to spam your email list with the same message over and over. However, sending an email a second time increases open rate, allowing you to reach more people.
The trick to making this work is to resend each email to only those that didn’t open the original email. Wait at least 3 days, then change the subject line and click send.
Myth #4: Tuesday is email day.
This myth is a “best practice” that’s been firmly adhered to far too long. The truth is that the best day to send emails to your subscribers completely depends on... your subscribers!
If you market to other businesses that would use your products in their offices, then emailing leads during a workday is best. On the other hand, if you’re a B2C company, it may work better to email over the weekend.
Myth #5: Less is more.
Whether it’s the subject line, the body, or the frequency of emails, we’ve been told for years that less is more.
“Don’t send more than one email a month.” “Keep your subject line between 25 and 50 characters.” “Avoid lengthy wording in the body.”
In reality, how long your message is and how often you send emails depends on your industry, goals, and subscribers. Sometimes, more is more.
As esteemed copywriter Ray Edwards says, "There's no content that's too long, only too boring."
Today’s marketing emails can be personalized, customized, interactive and segmented, making them a key piece to any marketing strategy.
