Even though email marketing is the most effective conversion tool for small businesses and content creators, like a toddler drinking out of your water bottle, there are still plenty of myths about email marketing floating around.
But buckle up! Because I’m about to bust some of the most common email marketing myths wide open. You know, so you can finally hit send and make the most of your campaigns. After all, you deserve to make money with email, baby.
Email marketing is only for big businesses with large budgets
Listen up small businesses! Email marketing is not just for giant businesses with huge marketing teams. With the right knowledge and resources, email marketing can be profitable even on a small-scale.
As someone who has had tremendous success in many different industries, I can vouch for email marketing’s huge potential when it comes to putting money in your business’s bank account.
Your email list could very well end up becoming your deepest source of profit – so don’t hesitate to start embracing email marketing strategies… even if you’re just getting started with your business.
You need to have a huge list of subscribers to be successful
When it comes to email marketing, how many people do you need on your list to make it truly effective? The answer is – it depends. You could have a few thousand subscribers and make six figures. Or you could have tens of thousands and not see more than a few hundred dollars here and there.
For me?
I once had an email list with 6,000 subscribers and only made $20k in a year’s time.
But the next year, I had an email list of 800 and made $89k.
The key is how you engage with your subscribers –
how well your welcome sequence works
how often you communicate with them
how engaging the content of your emails are
what offers are you presenting them and when
– those things will be crucial in figuring out how large your list should be.
Email marketing is spammy
This couldn’t be further from the truth! Email marketing works SO WELL because it is consent based. People opt into your email list to hear more about a certain topic or interest.
This makes email marketing an incredibly powerful marketing tool. And this is why you can expect a return of about $30-40 for every dollar you spend on email.
Here’s are two simple ways to make sure you are sending consent-based emails that aren’t spam:
#1– Never send a mass email to someone who did not directly opt-in.
That means everyone you’re adding to your email service provider should have given you explicit consent to hear from you. Most email service providers (because they also don’t want to anger the Internet Gods) will make it very easy for you to gain consent with their landing pages.
#2- When you email your list, don’t send users unwanted email (otherwise known as spam).
In other words, don’t send emails they didn’t ask for. If you got them to sign up to learn about dog photography, don’t send them an email asking them to donate to an octopus charity. (Yes. Those exist.) Instead focus on providing value to their inbox…value that will engage your target audience.
Imagine agreeing to that first date with someone you’re interested in, only to find out that they invited you to a timeshare sales pitch. No one wants that, right? It’s not different from someone clicking that confirmation to be on your email list and boom they are hit with constant sales pitches.
The welcome sequence you create once someone joins your list is like the first few dates! Introduce yourself, share some value, and set expectations. If you’re in my Email Marketing Membership [add link to membership], that’s exactly what the welcome sequence templates are all about.
Social media is in and email marketing is out. People just don’t read email anymore.
Hold your horses! The myth that email isn’t as effective as social media for businesses? That is just about my biggest pet peeves. While it may be fun to twerk-n-werk* on Tik Tok and “the gram”…email is still the preferred method king of communication and commerce for consumers.
*I just made that up.
What I didn’t make up:
And here are a few more facts to help you understand the main difference between social media marketing and email marketing
1– email reaches far more customers than any other single digital channel.
Think about it. You post a reel on Instagram at the same time that you send an email to your list. The post on Instagram gets fed to the Almighty Algorithm to be dispersed as it deems necessary. AKA: IG shows your content to the people it thinks that will engage with it. Once that’s done? Your content is done.
On the other hand, your email is sent to your subscribers and patiently waits for the readers to open it. There’s no “dying down” of the email and when you’ve done your job correctly, your readers will open it.
So while you may have 1000 followers on any given social media platform, we can guess that their algorithms only show your content to a certain percentage, right?
With email, you are in the driver’s seat. Your email will be sent to EVERY SINGLE LEAD on your email list. It’s up to you to get people to read them.
Lucky for you–it isn’t actually too difficult.
Here’s an article on email best practices that should help you get started.
And here’s another article on nurturing your email list so yes! People actually open, read, and take action on your emails.
2– We act (and interact) differently when we use our email vs social media.
Social Media Scenario:
Your phone dings. It’s a notification from Facebook. You’ve got a few minutes so you decide to click and see what’s happening over on the Big Blue.
The admin of that new FB group tagged you in a welcome post. You only joined that group because your biz bestie recommended it so instead of clicking over, you decide to click on the notification below. It’s a reply to a photo you posted a few hours ago. A laugh emoji from a college buddy. You decide to re-read what you wrote and then comment on everyone’s comment. New FB group post forgotten.
Email Scenario:
Your phone dings. It’s an email from your bank. You ignore it. You’re supposed to be working. An hour passes and you have a few minutes so you decide to click on your gmail app and see if there’s anything pressing you need to take care of.
There’s that bank statement. Unnecessary. Delete. Scroll. Archive. Archive. Archive. Delete. Open and skim. Delete.
Ooo! Liz Wilcox sent you something! You open it right away and skim through what she’s talking about this week. You notice she just wrote a new blog post so you click over to that. Finally! You’ve been wondering about list building and now she’s got a blog post on that. Inside the blog post, she’s got a link to her $12 workshop. You’re supposed to be working instead of reading so you snag it up, get the confirmation page, and close the app.
Here’s the difference:
With social media, we are looking to be entertained. So we do the things that feel most ego-driven. Getting a like, comment, etc? That’s a dopamine hit. So we keep doing things on social media that give us that hit.
With email, we are looking to be served. We know we get our bill info through there, and we’ve signed up for things that we want to learn more about. So when we enter the app, we are looking for solutions.
Whether that’s the answer to “how much $$$ do I have in my bank account” or (hopefully in your case) “what does Liz have to say this week about email?”…our actions are based on the premise that I’m about to be served up some answer or solution that I need.
In summary:
Email is the most effective way to reach out to warm leads, engage them, and make a sale.
Email open rates are dead since the apple iOs updates
Okay, yes. The almighty Apple has decided to “protect their users” by telling them that we email marketers are invading their privacy and as the user, should block us from being able to see whether they opened an email.
(Side note: Apple did not think this through. The beauty of email is that it’s consent-based. And when people stop opening our emails, we stop emailing them. But now, we can’t even know that for certain. How did they not think that through? I digress…)
So what now? Does that mean email open rates are dead?
Not exactly. Instead, I like to think of them maybe as Edward Cullen from Twilight?
Sure, he’s not alive, but he’s still very nice to look at.
So here’s the deal: Your open rate is inflated. Any person using the Apple Mail app on their phone or desktop (to filter all their mail through)? Apple is “sending out a bat signal” to tell us (the email-er) that the user (who we just emailed) has opened the email.
Don’t ask me how they came to that conclusion–it’s just a thing now, okay?
That means, depending on the amount/percentage of people using Apple Mail on your email list, your email open rate is inflated by that amount.
Of course, we can’t really know for certain what that percentage is. And unless you’re an Android + Windows tech geek serving only Android + Windows tech geeks, your email list has been effected by this, starting in September 2021.
But back to shiny cute teenage vampires.
Just like Edward Cullen isn’t alive, Bella still can’t stop eyeballin’ him, right?
And just like your open rate isn’t wholly accurate, you can still look at this metric and use it as a tool to guide your email marketing newsletters, automations, and campaigns.
(I really hope this metaphor/analogy/whatever is making sense. I’m writing this alone in my house with no one to give me feedback.)
How this works:
The latest email newsletter you wrote has an open rate of 40%. Last week’s newsletter was 38%.
While we now KNOW these numbers aren’t exactly accurate, we can still say with certainty that last week’s newsletter did not perform as well as this week’s.
That’s because the open rate is consistently inflated. Unless you go to an Apple Mail convention and get 1000 new leads tomorrow, the percentage of people using Apple Mail on your email list? It stays pretty consistent.
So now you can ask yourself what the difference between the two was. Then use that information to write your next newsletter with the objective of getting that open rate to 41%.
And so on and so forth until the Volturi comes. (please tell me you read Twilight.)
In summation:
Yes! Your open rate is no longer accurate. In fact, it’s inflated.
No! This doesn’t mean you can’t use email open rates as a datapoint to drive decision making.
Want to dig deeper into open rates, what Apple iOs updates did to them, and other metrics you should be tracking?
Check out my $49 workshop– Open Rates + Other Metrics that Matter.
Inside, you’ll find:
- Mail Privacy Protection explained
- The difference between open rates before Apple messed it all up and now
- The #1 most reliable + recommended piece of data to collect
- How you can know if your email list has actually been affected.
- The future of open rates + which email service providers are actually helping the cause
- The accuracy of click rates + how to use those as well to drive your decision making
Email Marketing Myths? Consider ‘em busted!
Call me Adam and you be Jamie ‘cause we just busted right through those email marketing myths.
Remember, it doesn’t matter
-how big your list of subscribers is,
-that everyone seems to be so active on social media
-or even that Apple iOs no longer lets you know your true open rate!
Email marketing can and will be extremely effective for you as a small business, startup, ecommerce brand, or content creator! But you’ve got to stop sweating over these email marketing myths and just start emailing.
Get started today by clicking here and getting a free, already-written-for-you welcome sequence, 3 newsletter templates, and 52 subject lines. All for free to make emailing your list of subscribers that much easier.
