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15

email

marketing

myths

Debunking it with the divinity

Do you think that using “FREE” in the subject line will impact your deliverability or do you think Monday mornings are the best time to send your emails? Think twice!

These are just myths! Email marketing works differently for different brands and industries. Hence, we Monks bust some of the most dominating myths of email marketing and enlighten you with the path to successful email marketing.

Generation (Y) uses smart gadgets and tablets the most and
thus most segmentation should cover a young target audience !

Younger the user, more likely they are to use a mobile device! So not true!

As per Hubspot, Tablets are highest used in the age group 30 to 44! As per Guardian, Tablets usage jumped by 12% in just a year, for 65 to 74 year olds.

As per one of the surveys, subscribers below age 25 prefer SMS to email.

As per Email Stats Center, 38% of marketers segment for 6+ audiences.

Infact, the growth in the usage of smart gadgets is seen across various age groups. That said;
ensure that the demographic segmentation isn't biased to a specific age group of subscribers.

First time or repeat customer,
I’ll send them all the same email – It doesn’t matter !

As per Bain, repeat customers spend on an average, 67% more than new customers and as per eConsultancy a repeat customer is 3 times more valuable; so plan your campaigns differently.

A repeat customer in itself is the evidence of customer loyalty!

Ideally, target both new and existing customers with different campaigns using behavioral dynamic content that tweak the campaigns based on their browsing or past purchase behavior.

All those who have opted in and
have continued, are my loyal readers !

Unfortunately, not true either! The fact that your subscribers themselves
opted-in and are with you for long, doesn’t always imply that they want to hear from you!
Some of them are with you because they are inactive and your emails are just graymail.

Turns out, some of them opted-in through proxy forms for incentives or to surpass premium content gateways! Some might have done that in a misconception. Sob!

As the consumer life grows on some lists (from a study) the length of time on a list can actually grow the possibility of spam complaints. At 31 months, 43% of a list were more apt to complain.

According to a survey, 25% of your house email list will expire every year as readers switch jobs, email providers, and so on.

Eliminating bad/invalid email addresses equals list cleaning !

Though some marketers feel list cleaning is about removing bad data,
it’s actually more than that!

About eight years ago, list management meant scrubbing lists for invalids!

As per Email Stats Center, removing subscribers who have not engaged in over a year instantly increases your deliverability rate by 3 to 5%.

As per the recent survey of Silverpop, marketers using tools that not just clean list but also make it hygienic witnessed a drop in the bounce rate by 95%.

The horizons of list cleaning have expanded towards removing
unengaged customers, updating preferences, scrutinizing multiple
emails or decision makers, changing role based emails, removing
spam traps etc. to ensure better targeting and communication based
on the list’s changed preferences and behavior.

A subject line is the golden key to the success of
an email marketing campaign !

Partially true! You can’t even begin to agree that they do not govern your email opens,
but at the same time it’s not the only thing that governs the email open rate.
According to Marketing Charts, sender name is the primary reason for opening an email!

Reasons for opening an email

You should measure various components of the email and
figure out the best performers using multivariate testing.

Shorter subject lines result in to greater
email effectiveness !

Adestra’s 2013 Subject Analysis report enforces the fact that subject line length is
largely dependent upon the industry you come from.
Longer lines are beneficial to some marketers.

Subject Line Character Length

Measure what works best for your industry and then devise your subject lines accordingly.
Lengthy lines are no more a sin!

Informative content is the only gold to
keep your readers interested and buying !

Devising right email copy and matching up the same with your segment’s interest
areas is critical. Different kinds of subscribers have different motivational levels
to open an email.

As per Blue Hornet’s Consumer View Report for 2014,
discounts are the number one reason subscribers sign-up to receive emails.

Which of the following is the most important reason for
signing up to receive emails from companies seeking your business?

  • To receive discounts
  • To receive tailored / exclusive offers
  • To get products / service updates
  • If i love the brand
  • To participate in product research
  • I don’t sign up for emails
  • Other

See what your subscribers like the most. Cater to their individual preferences.
Drive sales offers, discounts and promotions and alongside provide industry news,
knowledge base, work stories and so much more to make your email marketing attractive.

Images are more preferable to text !!

Pictures shout louder than words – YES & YES!! But, it’s not entirely true.
The respondent’s interest governs what they want to look at in an email!

As per Hubspot, emails without images are likely to have a CTR of 1% more than emails with images.

According to ExactTarget, more than 60% of email clients block images by default.

Try not to over-do on the images; as some email clients might just view
emails with images off by default. Text is rather a preferable and a safe
practice. As per the Email Stats Center, adding alt text is a simple step
that many marketers skip—and it can lower your response rate by 14%.
Up to 67% of B2C recipients and 42% of B2B recipients will see disabled
images in your email messages where alt tags could have been used. If
you are using images, provide alt text too!

Higher the email frequency, higher the unsubscribe every time !

Alchemy Worx found that if a brand increases their email sends from 1 email per month to 4, it can double the open rate and earn an additional 11% of revenue for the brand, on average.

Hubspot conducted a study and found that if you're emailing your list 4 or 5 times a month,
it will actually decrease your unsubscribes!

Avg. Sends per Month

You might need to ascertain your own email frequency.
Higher frequency isn’t always bad, although it varies as per the subscriber preferences,
brand, industry and content. Decide what works best for you and plan
out your sending frequency accordingly.

You just cannot send the same email twice !

WHY NOT??? Sending the same email again to the non-responders saves investment in to
email design and coding. It’s fine to do that smartly! May be, changing email subject lines?

As per Silverpop, the average email marketing open rate in 2014 was 17.1% - WOAHH!! So, over 80% of your database did not read your email.

According to INC, remails with just subject line change and same copy results 60% lift on average.

Emails sent on Mondays/Tuesdays are the most successful !

The graph from marketing charts presents open rates by day of the week.

The members on your email list may have their own open preferences.
Test your list to identify which days of the week are top performers for your email list.

Morning is the only best time to send your
marketing emails !

This myth has been around for a while! Retention Science found that most online shoppers stay active later in the day but typically receive shopping-related promotional emails early in the morning! Again you ought to test what works well with your list.

Mailchimp uncovered that recipients are more likely to open their email after 12pm.

Email Opens By Time of Day

Subscribers are likely to open email after 12pm, and the most active hours are 2-5pm.

Testing a small percentage of a list is enough to
show the effectiveness of a message !

As per one survey by Marketing Sherpa, marketers can witness a lift in conversion by 162% if the email testing sample is adequate.

UNTRUE BECAUSE- It is not enough! Keep the sample size adequate enough to ensure it represents your entire email list. Do some statistical modelling to derive at the right sample size.

Use online calculators than guessing the sample size.

http://www.macorr.com/ss_calculator.htm http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm

My emails are fully can-spam compliant,
so my mails should reach the INBOX !

Your emails might not reach your subscriber's inbox, in spite of a great compliance.
Sender reputation is determined by volume, complaint rates, hard bounce rate, spam trap hits,
authentication, etc. There are many other aspects of email marketing that could possibly go wrong!

These could be the reasons too:
1. Sender Reputation
2. A full inbox
3. Tabbed inbox
4. Invalid email address
5. Issues relating to ISP servers
& so on....

As per DMA, 80% of emails do not hit the inbox on account of poor domain reputation. 20% of the emails do not reach inbox on account of issues other than reputation.

Inbox placement and low Complaint rates
means no chances of being marked SPAM !

A low complaint rate and good inbox placement doesn’t always mean that
your emails are evading the spam trap.

Complaint Rate = No. of emails delivered to the inbox/ Subscriber complaints

Hotmail estimates that Graymail, or "bacn," emails represent 50% of all inbox traffic, and are the source of 75% of all spam complaints.

Thus, if your email sending volume isn’t high, then chances are that you may have a
bad complaint rate, owing to the above formula. More focus must be put on spam rate,
which can only be attained by healthy and ethical email sending practices.

You are free from the old curse of myths!
Remember to chant these mantras from now on!

Monks Image
Monks Image
  • Good time to send an email hasn't been defined yet in the books of email. You ought to test what works well for you.
  • There is an email overload, but subscribers love to listen and engage with brands they love.
  • Email delivery rate is cumulatively affected with poor sender reputation, ISP issues, bounces and so much more.
  • If you are confused about email marketing ROI, track other metrics beyond open rate and CTR.
  • Testing with few subscribers isn’t enough. Run multivariate testing selecting a good sample size.
  • Don’t care about email list hygiene and permissions? Well, you will be dead soon!
  • Mobile isn’t the only device where emails are opened. Consider tablets, desktops and other viewing environments too.
  • Subject line matters but not the most. For a better ROI, consider other vital components of the email too.
Emilmonks

Email Monks design and code heavenly emails, newsletter templates and landing pages.
To know more email us on hello@emailmonks.com or visit www.emailmonks.com