There are many myths surrounding email marketing.  Sometimes a blank stare is the only response my stunned-self can muster (hey, it’s better than an exasperated sigh) when confronted by one of these. 

So, I thought I’d craft a more suitable response to some of these myths I come to stand against most frequently, so that next time I’ll have my answer at the ready (rather than resorting tomy previousstunned silence).  Here they are:

I can’t send another email this month, it’s too much!

Really?  Considering the number of companies that send daily emails (think Groupon, eMarketer Daily, or your daily horoscope), you would think that it’s clear that frequency is not what will have your emails marked as spam.  Bad sender reputations and ISP relationships; yes, but not frequency. 

This doesn’t mean you have free flow to blast your database with weekly emails.  After all, subscriber engagement is becoming key in guarding your email reputation, and an exhausted database simply won’t engage.

When deciding whether or not to send another email, consider two things:

• Does the content really warrant sending an email about?  Is it that relevant?
• When was the last time you sent to this segment of your database?  If you segment your database and send messages accordingly, you’ll find that the same subscribers will often also receive less communication from you – they won’t receive every single message, but rather only the ones pertaining to them.

Our emails aren’t performing well – let’s redesign the template...

Truth is you don’t necessarily need a new template; very often you simply need to do some layout and content testing on your existing one.  Besides changing your template every three sends (because that’s, on average, how long a recipient will continue to open your emails if they don’t find the content to be relevant or valuable) is not feasible.

Yes, often I wish more brands would redesign their templates – there are far too many dull emails lowering the aesthetic standards of our inboxes – but often I see misguided marketers redesigning a template that simply needed some testing.  The sad part is that their new template, while more visually enticing, often contains the same errors their previous one had.

Very often a more effective course of action would be to test layout, call to action, or copy. 

So, why don’t we do more testing?  Because it’s time consuming – and time is money, after all.  That, and it requires effort, of course.  Testing changes over a series of sends can take a long time, especially if you don’t send very frequently.  Split testing is a more immediate solution.
And yes, testing may entail design changes (read: more time and effort), but when you consider how much time you’re wasting sending an ineffective campaign, it makes sense to make the extra effort to ensure optimal performing email campaigns.

I just don’t have enough content for a regular newsletter.

Perhaps not, but a newsletter does not an email campaign make.   Many organisations’ idea of email marketing is still limited to the traditional newsletter or tactical promotions.  While this is valuable and definitely effective for some businesses, others may benefit more from enhanced transactional messaging (for example, Amazon inserts recommendations for future purchases in their email receipts), user-triggered email campaigns (like filling in an enquiry form to receive more information via email), or lead nurturing campaigns (LearnVest enables you to sign up for a ten-day “budgeting bootcamp” - delivered to your email address daily – before signing up to their product). 

Your digital and business objectives will help decide which of these could work best for you.

Email marketing doesn’t work.
You’re wasting my time.  Read this. [http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/basics/why.htm]

I feel like I say this with every piece of email marketing advice I give, but it really is all campaign dependent.  The answer for each brand’s email campaign will be different to that of the next and will ultimately be decided by three things:

•  Your audience
• Your objectives

Wait for it...

• Testing.