Having worked at a digital agency for a while prior to moving to TouchBasePro (I’m still considered the newbie), email was never really “considered” much when putting together solutions for clients. The more popular forms of digital marketing such as social media, SEO, PPC and web design were always front and centre and, although email marketing was on offer, it wasn’t a product offering many were actively encouraged to promote to clients because many felt (and still feel) that email is ineffective, boring and that no one reads emails anymore. 

It’s almost easy to have fallen into the fallacy that email wasn’t the most exciting or effective way to build a brand, oh boy was I wrong. 

Now working in the email sphere, one of the larger hurdles I face in my day to day is overcoming these exact misconceptions about email marketing. They’re misconceptions that I too was guilty of believing and still feel a lot of people have but I’d love to debunk some of those myths. Here are 3 email myths I’d love to bust about the efficacy of strategic email marketing. 

“No one reads emails!” 

I think a more accurate headline would read “I don’t read my emails!” Due to the way that we engage with our own inboxes, most people assume that no one will engage with an email sent from their business. This couldn’t be further from the truth.  

Fact: We’re all busy and our time is valuable. If you want me to engage with your brand, you’ll need to make an effort. I don’t want the same email that gets sent to everyone else on your mailing list, I want to feel special. If you can convey the idea that the mail you just sent me was tailor-made to appeal to me, and only me, you have my attention. Engagement is intrinsically tied to personalization.  

According to a report by Experian, promotional emails that were personalized had a 29% higher unique open rate and a 41% higher unique click-through rate than those that weren’t. 

Now that you’ve opened my email because I appealed to you as an individual, how do I get you to take action? The adage “content is king” rings true here. If the content of your mail interests me on a personal level, more so than a logical one, I will take action. A great example of a personalized email is the campaign sent by Monica Vinader below. 

To sum it up, if emails are approached strategically with a focus on personalization and engagement, a strong return on investment will be achieved.

Emails aren’t “cool” 

Marketing, especially in the digital sphere, has always placed a large amount of focus on creativity. These high levels of creativity have in turn led to some undeniably cool campaigns, however, one of the reasons that marketers tend to shift focus away from email is due to the desire to produce “cool” content. But it’s not just about having the next (insert cool brand here) campaign, it’s about results.  

If your focus is “creating the most revolutionary experiential marketing campaign since Amazon and Ms. Maisel broke Santa Monica”, why not make email a touchpoint of that campaign? The reason I can almost guarantee people aren’t, is because most people don’t realise how creative you can get with email. 

The possibilities are endless, from dynamic content, live API’s in emails and the highest degree of personalization possible to segmentation, curated customer journeys and a ton more. Email marketing is, for lack of a better analogy, like the song on your playlist you always skip that turns out to be absolute fire! 

Emails are just “digital pamphlets” 

Emails don’t have to be used solely as a method of delivering information. Quite the opposite actually! Email should also be used to glean information from your client base. In a world where personal data recently surpassed crude oil as the most valuable commodity on the planet, the importance of using email to learn more about your audience can’t be overstated.  

By making email campaigns interactive and engaging, you motivate your target audience to entrust you with their privileged data. Offering incentives, setting up content to entice engagement, being a little cheekier with your copy where you can and above all, trying to make it fun, is highly necessary!  

The example below from Urban Outfitters is an excellent example of utilizing humorous and very “human” copy and imagery to give us something we can relate to. 

That said, different brands will need to communicate in a different tone and having cute copy or fun layouts is simply not an option for certain brands and industries. If, however, there is an opportunity to relate your content to someone on a more personal level, you need to take it.  

The terms B2B and B2C are archaic at best. We are, after all, all just people and it becomes pertinent to build human-to-human communication.  

In conclusion, email is an incredibly effective and an often-overlooked touchpoint in the digital space. If your other marketing avenues like videography, social media, SEO and PPC are considered Jedi Masters, let us be your R2D2! After all, the rebellion would have failed without the droids…