Don’t Fall for These Email Marketing Myths

Ever hear email marketing tips that are rigid, vague, or just too good to be true? There’s no shortage of quality information online about the best ways to get your messages across—but here are some common email marketing myths you definitely shouldn’t believe. 

Myth: Consumers receive too much email already 

One of the most widely-spread myths about email marketing is that consumers already get far too much email. In fact, most people don’t receive very many emails each day from brands. Sure, they’ll ignore lots of junk mail, but they’ll still pay attention to messages from the brands they value. 

If you’ve been avoiding email marketing because you’re afraid your potential customers receive too many emails, you can put this myth out of your mind. 

Myth: There’s one specific right time to send your emails 

Thursdays at 3:00 pm. Weekend mornings before 8:30 am. There’s always someone with a theory about exactly when you should send your emails for the best results—but there are a few problems with this way of thinking. 

First, if you’re sending out emails at 2 pm on a Friday, and that time slot comes from a popular email marketing “best practice,” then that’s also when everyone else, including competitors, will be sending their emails. Second, most people don’t open and read emails the moment they receive them. Your recipients may take days to open an email and weeks to act on it. 

Myth: You should stop sending to inactive recipients after six months 

Unless someone asks you to stop sending by unsubscribing, there’s no reason to stop sending them emails after just six months of inactivity. You want to keep a fairly clean email list that you regularly purge to avoid wasting time and resources, but six months isn’t long enough to decide that someone is never going to respond. 

If you want to be sure your list is still serving you, offer your “inactive” contacts a coupon or other reward in exchange for updating their email preferences. 

Myth: You should be worried about consumers reporting your emails as spam 

Your email recipients won’t bother hitting that “spam” button nearly as often as you might fear. In fact, they’re far more likely to simply delete an email that doesn’t interest them. 

The occasional person who does flag you as spam won’t be enough to get you in trouble when it comes to your email marketing strategy. Keep providing helpful, informative content, and if you are flagged, handle the issue immediately and stop sending emails to that person. 

Myth: The shorter the subject line, the better 

You should be succinct, but there are times when you cannot contain a thought or idea in just a few words. Many sources say to keep your subject lines to 60 characters, but don’t worry about this “limit” too much if it will keep you from being able to include important details. 

Your goal is conversion, so you may need those helpful details to grab your audience’s attention. Keep it short–but only if you can still convey the information your readers need. 

Email list strategies vary considerably based on different audiences. Instead of believing the hype of universal best practices, get to know your customers and test your strategies, then use what you learn to tailor your email marketing.