Email marketing is an incredibly useful tool, but only if you get it right. And with this need to get it right comes all sorts of theories of how to get the knack of sending out emails. Some are true, others are just downright rubbish. Here, we’ll take a look at some of the questions our clients ask when it comes to email marketing as well as some we often see published across the web.

#1 Send your emails in the morning

It’s an old and outdated belief that emails sent in the morning will ALWAYS get the best open rate. Our guess is that it comes from the early bird gets the worm. Now, it may work for you and your audience, but don’ take this piece of advice too seriously – take a look at your analytics and experiment with timings until you begin to see some sort of correlation between the time sent and the open rate.

There’s so much advice out there – Mailchimp report that 10am is the best time to send emails for high open rates, whereas Experian say it is between 4am and 8am – who is right? Well, no one! You need to see what works for YOUR audience and work off that.

12pm is increasingly becoming THE time to send emails - take note of how many you receive on your lunch hour or just before and you’ll soon see this is very much the case right now. Give it a go, but if it doesn’t work then try some different times and see what suits your audience.

#2 Short emails are more effective than long ones

Both short and long emails have their place in marketing – it’s a case of knowing when to utilise them. Remember, when writing an email you don’t need to write any more than is needed to create a persuasive argument or lure your audience into a sale.

Again, with email length it is a case of experimenting to see what your audience responds best to. Some audiences will be extremely invested in your brand already, so will require less copy to prompt them to take action, whereas others will need a little more detail. Of course, this will depend on the nature of your business too.

So how should you test this? Try sending out an email with less than 150 words, then another with 200+ with all other elements of the email the same, other than the text. Then, split your audience in half and send one or the other to each half before analysing the date for click throughs, opens and other interactions.

#3 Anything that looks spammy will send you to the junk folder

So, what does a spam filter check? Here are just a few elements:

Many words and phrases often thought to ensure an email ends up in the junk folder actually have little or no effect. Mailchimp and Hubspot also report that including ‘FREE’ in your subject line doesn’t have much of an impact either – smashing the myth of having to be incredibly careful with language to avoid the junk folder.

However, spam filters are still mysterious and sometimes you’ll get flagged for what seems like no reason - don’t lose heart, it happens to the best of us.

#4 Responsive design doesn’t matter for email

Wrong. Responsiveness is important not just for your website, but within your emails too. Think about how you usually manage your emails from brands – is it usually on your phone on your way to work? According to EmailMonday, 75% of consumers use their smartphone for reading email. On top of that, Chamaileon reports that up to 80% of users delete emails they can’t read for reasons such as poor responsiveness.

How can you make sure your email is responsive? Use a service such as Mailchimp and make sure you don’t just proofread the desktop version but take a look at the mobile preview too, to check how it looks on a different device. Email platforms such as Mailchimp will do the responsive work for you, you just need to look over the finished product and make any improvements.

#5 Sending too many emails will annoy your audience

This one really is vital to understand – and very much about striking the right level of communication. There’s a fear about annoying your audience, and even worse being marked as spam – but it’s not as much of a big deal as you would think.

Again, you need to look at how your audience behaves. If you’re sending out more emails, you need to be offering value in each and every one of those, whether it’s special offers or downloadable resources. Just sending them news week after week will more than likely bore them. But will more emails lessen their impact? No, not necessarily. Instead, it will generally strengthen it through fewer unsubscribes, higher open rates and an increase in revenue.

When it comes to being marked as spam, studies show that about 1 in every 2,000 subscribers will actually go to the extreme of taking this action – so it’s not a huge worry.

Email marketing is something our digital marketing team are being approached about more and more often. Are you making the most of your contact list? If you’d like to see how we would help you connect with your customers and get them opening your emails, please get in touch!