Improve your email marketing and don’t be fooled by these common myths.
Email marketing has been around for decades, with one of the first marketing emails being sent out more than 40 years ago. So it’s no surprise that in that time there have been a few rumors and misconceptions thrown around.
During that time, email has proven to be one of the most effective ways to reach your customers. It has withstood the many changes that come with the digital world and continues to come out on top as one of the best ways to provide your customers with a quality, personalized experience with your brand.
From people killing it off well before it’s time to die, downplaying the benefits of mass email messaging, and telling you the wrong things to focus on, the good things about emails sometimes get overlooked.
Here’s a quick look at the email marketing myths we’ll bust in this article:
- Is email marketing really dead?
- Does sending a mass email to mean you can’t personalize your messages?
- Are your customers really going to take the time to read your messages?
- Will buying an email list help you grow your subscriber list?
- Are open and click-through rates really the only metrics that matter?
1. Email marketing is dead and doesn’t work anymore
We’ve all heard the claims: email marketing is dead. When you read articles that talk about the demise of email, it’s hard not to question whether you’re wasting time on communicating with your customers via email.
Well, here’s the answer: no. Email marketing is not dying. In fact, 68% of millennials say promotional emails have influenced their purchasing decisions. That means that more than half of the younger generation, who will continue to be your customers for years to come, are influenced to make purchases through email marketing.
If you simply ignore email marketing, you are missing out on a big opportunity to reach your customers and increase sales. If you simply ignore email marketing, you are missing out on a big opportunity to reach your customers and increase sales. Check out great tools like Flodesk.
If you’re still not convinced that email is not dying, let’s take a look at a few more convincing stats around email marketing.
- For every $1 spent, you can expect an average return of $32
- 28% of customers want to receive promotional emails more than once a week
- There will be 4.4 billion email users by 2023
- 86% of professionals say email is their preferred means of business communication
At this point, if you still think email marketing is dead — you need to reevaluate your current strategy.
2. Mass emails don’t allow for personalization
Mass emails were once known for their batch and blast capabilities — and today many still think of them that way. But the truth of the matter is mass emails have evolved with the world around them and are more beneficial than ever before.
One common misconception that comes with mass emailing is that they provide everyone with a generic, stale message. With the capabilities of today’s mass emailing, that just isn’t the case. You now have the ability to create a basic email that is designed to be sent out to a larger audience but will include personalization within it.
Here are a few different ways you can personalize your mass email lists:
- Segmenting your customer lists by demographics or shopping activity
- Using customer first and last name in the content
- Add variables throughout the content to further personalize the content
Providing your customers with a more personalized experience has never been easier. Simply create mass emails through Gmail and start seeing the benefits.
3. Your customers won’t read your emails
We’ve already touched on this one a little in the first myth, but it’s worth having its own section. So many marketers chalk not using email marketing up to the fact that no one reads their emails, and no one uses email anymore.
That just isn’t true. When you consider that there are over 200 million email users just in the United States, it’s hard to believe this myth. On top of that, knowing that people check their emails about 15 times per day, it’s even harder to dispute the fact that people are still using and relying on emails.
Maybe not every customer is reading every single email you send, but your emails are getting seen. Just because every email you send out doesn’t end in a sale doesn’t mean your emails aren’t working. Just building brand awareness and staying present in your customer’s inboxes will help your customers keep your company in mind.
4. The only metrics that matter are open and click-through rates
We tend to get hung up on open and click-through rates when it comes to email marketing. So much so that we forget there are other things that point to a successful email marketing campaign.
So maybe you didn’t bring in the open rates you were hoping for, but you grew your subscriber list a substantial amount — that’s a feat on its own. You have to look at your efforts in a more holistic view to really see that open and click-through rates are not the only things that matter when it comes to email marketing campaigns.
If you find yourself obsessing over a specific set of metrics, think about other ways you can measure your efforts. There are many ways a campaign can be successful outside of the typical scope. You just have to change your mindset.
It’s time to change the way you think about email marketing. It’s not going away and it still proves to be one of the best avenues to reach your customers. Image courtesy of Pexels.
Don’t fall victim to these email marketing myths
Email marketing is still one of the best ways to reach your customers. Don’t find yourself doubting the capabilities and benefits that email has to offer. From reaching a larger audience to understanding that vanity metrics aren’t the only way to measure success — looking at email in a different light will benefit your efforts.
