5 Email Marketing Myths Debunked (Email Copywriting Fails)

When I was growing up, my parents told me that if I kept making that face, I would get stuck with it forever.

I also believed that I had to wait 30 minutes after eating before I could go swimming.

It turns out that I wasn’t the only one who believed these myths.

A lot of my other friends used to believe them, too.

Myths such as these are popular but are simply untrue.

Although they may seem harmless, believing the wrong myths can be harmful since it can lead you down the wrong path and prevent you from taking the right action for your business.

After all, if you believe doing something will produce certain results but actually don’t, you’re going to be wasting a lot of time and energy.

Email marketing has some of the biggest myths around it.

Here are 5 popular email marketing myths debunked for you:

Myth 1: Don’t email your subscribers too often

This is a popular myth about email marketing.

If you send too many emails, people will get annoyed and unsubscribe for you.

This simply isn’t true.

It’s not about the frequency of emails that you send but the quality and the value they provide to your readers.

If your emails are relevant and helpful, your subscribers will be happy to read them and take action.

Basically, how often you email your list will depend on your business and market.

Myth 2: The best time to send emails is on ___ day at ___ time. 

Have you heard the best day and time to send emails is on Thursday at 3 pm?

One problem if you believe this rule is that everyone else will be sending their emails at the same time too.

Also, most people are likely to check their emails more than once a day which makes this claim questionable.

Therefore, the “best time” to email your subscribers is going to vary from list to list.

So test out different days and times to see which day and time gives you the best results.

Myth 3: Short subject lines are better

A popular mantra is to keep your email subject lines 41-50 characters.

A study by Return Path has debunked this myth.

They analyzed 9,313,885 emails from more than 3,000 retail senders to determine the average read rate.

Although they found that 41-50 characters were the most common length for subject lines, longer subject lines with 61-70 characters had the highest average read rate at 17%.

This shows that a shorter subject line doesn’t mean that readers will actually click and read your email.

I’m not saying short subject lines don’t work because they most certainly do. However, It’s much better to personalize your subjects to your audience to encourage them to open your message.

So don’t be afraid to test out longer subject lines.

Learn the 5 critical elements of creating a great headline.

Myth 4: Unsubscribes are bad

This is also a popular email marketing myth.

In fact, I used to believe it too.

Although unsubscribes may seem like a bad thing, it’s actually good.

Why?

Because it removes people on your list who are unlikely to purchase your product or service.

This not only helps to keep your list clean, but it also saves you money from paying more to your email service provider for having a larger email list.

After all, it’s better to have a smaller list of engaged subscribers than a huge life of inactive ones.

Myth 5: Email marketing is dead

According to the DMI – Europe’s largest professional body representing direct marketing – email marketing gives you $38 back for every $1 spent.

That’s a 3800% ROI!

Mckinsey and Company also state that email conversion rates are about thrice as much as social media with over 15% higher value in conversions and about 40 times better than Facebook and Twitter at acquiring customers,

It’s safe to say that email marketing is alive and kicking!

If you want to take your emails up a notch and gain more sales and profits then check out my email autoresponder copywriting services. Unlike a large email marketing agency, I’ll personally work with you to improve your email series.

Simply pit, my email copywriting services will help turn your emails from “meh” to “wowza!” and get readers excited to open, read, and take action for a product or service.