With Artificial Intelligence and chatbots being an integral part of most communication strategies today, the fundamental tools of communication cannot be overlooked. And one of these tools is emails. Whether you are still contemplating if email marketing is really effective as part of your inbound marketing strategy or not, the facts stand true. For every dollar spent, email marketing generates an astounding average of 36$. This makes up about 3600% return on investment. Facts or not, there are still numerous myths floating around with regards to email marketing and what it can and cannot do. Let’s explore?

1. Best Time to Send Emails? 3 pm, Thursday

Majority of people believe that sending emails on Thursday around 3 pm works best across all industries and regions. But think about it - if every marketer chose to send emails around this time, then what are the chances of your email being read by the prospect at all? There just cannot be a general “best email time”  that works for everyone. Let’s see why.

• You have varied buyer persona and all don’t fall into the Thursday, 3 PM bracket. 
• So, what do you do? Firstly, define the buyer persona and see where and when they are most active.
• Based on your research, try out different times and analyse after a few days what analytics are telling you. 
• Also, keep in mind another fact that 85% of readers open their email only after 2 days of receiving it while 32% of purchases happen within the next two weeks. 

2. The Same Email Shouldn’t be sent Twice

While a lot of marketers still believe that sending a similar email twice wouldn’t work in your favour, it actually is quite the contrary. Why is that? 

• It often happens that the email gets ignored, is deleted accidentally or wasn’t responded to.
• In such a case, that email is followed by another email and is known as a “remail”. 
• However, the “remails” only stand a chance to work well for you if you:
• Wait for at least 72 hours before sending it
• Change its subject line and tweak the content
• Send it only if the email campaign is highly imperative

3. Want Subject Lines and Emails to Work? Keep Them Short

This is another common myth on the list. Marketers struggle with keeping their subject lines and emails short and end up missing out on putting key messaging forward. But here’s the good news! More than the length of your subject line, it matters how you present it and how catchy it is. Let’s check out a few facts that are myth busters:

• 7 words in a subject line have acquired a sweet spot with a high open-rate. While 7 words happen to work well, 9 to 10 words aren’t doing too badly either.
• To have your subject line work well, try personalising in accordance with the receiver. There is about a 22% higher chance of your email opening if the subject line is personalised.
• Analyse how compelling, informative, and interesting you are in your emails and what you are trying to convey. 
• Ensure including a call-to-action.

4. Consumers Take A Shine To Hit That Spam Button

How often do you find yourself spamming brands that send newsletters? It is often that consumers might not acknowledge the mail, but it rarely happens that they take that extra effort of hitting the spam button. We have a number of facts to back this up.

• Less than one in a set of 2000 subscribers actually marks emails as spam.
• It’s a breather to know that the chances of someone actually marking your emails as spam are only 0.05%.
• So, focus on creating informative, relevant and personalised content anyway. 
• However, in all unlikelihood, if you’ve been marked as spam, instantly remove that contact from your list to avoid sending more emails.

5. User’s Inactive. Why Make An Effort!

It is a common practice that most marketers observe that when they find a user inactive for more than 6 months, they remove them from the subscriber’s list. However, you will be surprised to know that:

• About 20% of the subscribers pay heed to your emails even after staying inactive for 6 months.
• So the next time you consider performing a deep clean of your list, think twice before purging your ‘inactive’ users.
• Have patience and wait for a while (at least 6 months) before striking off ‘potential’ names from your list. 

6. Unsubscribers Can Cost Heavily

It undoubtedly does hurt when someone hits that unsubscribe button despite all your efforts. But wait, pause, and think. Are unsubscribers really that bad? Read on to have your perceptions changed.

• As per a research by Campaigner, 60% will delete the email and 23% mark the email as Spam.
• Moreover, if your unsubscriber ratio is less than 1%, there is no cause for concern. 
• The next time a subscriber wishes to bow out of your list, know that they are only making space for those who are interested in what you have to offer.

7. Email Marketing Will Cost You An Arm

While sending out emails is an effective strategy, their ineffectiveness may cost you a lot. Let’s discuss why email marketing wouldn’t cost you a fortune contrary to common knowledge.

• As per Marketingland, more than 77% of customers actually prefer emails over other social mediums. 
• And 80% of marketers say that they find email marketing as one of the strongest forms of reaching out to their target audience.
• Now imagine the cost of not doing all of this! 

Quick Refresher

99% of consumers check their emails every day. This opens up a sea of opportunities for marketers to strike a conversation and implement a potential email marketing strategy. Explore email marketing to its fullest and ignore the hearsays and myths regarding this approach. When it comes to conversions and communication, your email marketing campaign can yield you great results when implemented with the right strategy. 
Which is your favourite email myth of all time? Share with us in the comments below.