The 5 Myths Of Email Marketing

When learning something new such as Email Marketing, it’s quite common to find a lot of conflicting information. Some say don’t do this and some may say only do this. The following 5 Myths of Email Marketing are some “tips” that I have found browsing the net and have found that they have not been relevant in my case. So before taking everything you read as gospel, try it out for yourself and let your own results speak for themselves.

Bigger Database Equals Better Results

It’s a common belief by many that the bigger the database you have the better result you will have in your Email Marketing. The truth is though that you can have a list of 50,000+ clients with only 100 people opening your emails. While I’ve seen email marketing campaigns with only 2,000 clients in their database and 500+ people actively opening emails.

So although it may be a big ego boost to have a large database in your email marketing campaign, a smaller list of subscribers that is actively reading and acting on your emails will give you better results and be easier to manage.

The Word “Free” Places You In The Spam Folder

The way spam filters work is by assigning points to spammy email content and HTML code in an email, when the points add up to a certain level the email gets thrown in the spam folder, which is something you don’t want to happen to your email marketing campaign. One of the words that get a point assigned to it is the word “Free” which is why a lot of people say you shouldn’t use it your emails.

What most people don’t know is that phrases commonly used in legitimate emails that contain the word “free” don’t get classed as spam. Such as “free report”, “free e-book”, “free DVD”, “Free Trial” and “free newsletter”. So just use the word “free” in your emails wisely, and always test the email on yourself first. Send the email to a couple of your different email accounts and see if it gets treated as spam if it does, fix it until it doesn’t.

Don’t Include An Unsubscribe Link

This can be related back to “Bigger Database Equals Better Results” regarding the quality of your Email Marketing Database, by not having an unsubscribe link in your email not only will you be keeping a lot of the inactive subscribers, you may also annoy them, causing them to report you, put you in their spam folder or reply asking you to remove them anyway making more work for yourself. So dispute what you read or hear, in my opinion an unsubscribe link is a must in any email marketing campaign.

Emailing on Weekends is Pointless

It is generally believed that sending out an Email Marketing email on a weekend is pointless, however in my opinion it can be just as effective depending on the context of the email, the permission you received to send the emails and your email consistency. Such as, your email may be live football tournament results that occur on a weekend, and you have requested permission during sign-up process to send live football results every weekend.

It’s the two factors permission and consistency that will get the best results in any email marketing campaign. It is in your opt-in form where you specify or ask when and what you’ll be sending to the recipient and if they agree to your terms then they will be more likely to open the emails as they will be expecting them. In addition, being consistent by sending emails say on a Monday, Thursday and Saturday every week, will get a much better open rate then sending emails inconsistently throughout the week.

Although, there is some truth to the rumours that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday get better open rates, as people are more likely to act on emails around the middle of the working week, so take this into consideration as well.

Pretty Up Your Emails With Images and HTML

It may be nice to have a fancy emails filled with nice images and complicated HTML In your email marketing campaigns. However, it may not always look as nice in your recipients inbox’s, you may get classed as spam using HTML and the difference it makes may be quite minor compared to a simple text email.

So considering all that is mentioned above, instead of taking everything you read as gospel, take the time to do your own testing to see what works best for you as it will be worth it in all your email marketing campaigns.