Commentary

The Questions Everyone's Asking

Some in our industry have bemoaned the fact that we're always covering the basics. I think that's primarily a reflection of where the industry as a whole is. While there are some organizations doing amazingly advanced things with email, most companies are still nailing down the fundamentals. That's partially a consequence of the growth of the email marketing industry -- lots of fresh faces -- and the fact that most university marketing programs don't address email marketing very well, if at all.

At the Email Experience Council, we certainly get asked the same questions again and again:

 

  • Is it okay to email people that I haven't emailed in over a year?
  • What is the average rate of list churn?
  • What is the best day of the week to send email?
  • In the wake of the latest CAN-SPAM ruling, what has changed?

    After a while, it dawned on us that it might be helpful to aggregate the answers to these frequently asked questions. So we reached out to our members and started the wheels turning, figuring out which questions to address and how best to answer them. Many months later, we're happy to debut our list of Email Marketing Q&A's.

    advertisement

    advertisement

    Admittedly, agreeing on a single answer wasn't always easy -- and that's ignoring the fact that for many of the questions, there is no definitive answer besides "test, test, test." For instance, for the question "Can you give me a list of spammy words to avoid?" there was some disagreement on whether content filtering is still a significant issue. We concluded that with B2C emails filtering doesn't factor into the equation anymore, but that it does for B2B emails, which have to run a gauntlet of corporate email servers that often filter based on content.

    We also had some disagreements regarding the answer to "How much does it cost to buy an email list?" Ultimately we came down on the side of "NEVER buy an email list" -- but that answer will certainly not please everyone.

    If you'd like to chime in on the answers to those questions or to any of our other answers, we'd love to hear what you think. Please comment below or reach out to me directly.

    We're also planning on expanding the Q&As to address other questions, like

     

  • What information should I collect during sign-up besides email address?
  • Which email marketing metrics are most important?
  • What should I look for when choosing an ESP?
  • What are the pros and cons of list rental?

     

    Comment below if there are other recurring questions you think should be answered as well.

    • Next story loading loading..
    About the Author

    , research director, Litmus