Debunking 6 Email Marketing Myths by Len Markidan #333

Hi, and welcome to the SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebResults. I am Charles Lewis, your client results advocate. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our podcast. This is podcast number 333. Usually, there's a sign behind us that says 333, and you'll notice if you're watching, it's not a, well, it's a sign. It's a sign that Chuck is actually not here in our studio. So, he's broadcasting live from home, from the home office. How's it going, Chuck? Man, I'm at the crib, man. I'm good. All right. Wish I could be in the office right now, but, you know, next week. We are surviving here. As always, there is a tip from our previous podcast, and that tip is outside promotions can influence your analytics. Yeah, anytime you've done a promotion and then you're looking at analytics from the same time the previous year, expect your analytics to be skewed. So, keep that in mind as you review your reports to any outside promotion that you may have done. Boom. As always, please remember, we are your friendly local neighborhood top position snatchers, and our mantra is... Do not be a douche. Don't be a douche. It is not a good look for you. We have a good article about email or something, right, Chuck? Yeah, email marketing myths that you thought were facts. And so, it's by Lynn Marketing and the good folks over at Search Engine Journal, and so we'll check into that in just a minute. All right. So, if you... This is the first time you've listened to the podcast. Howdy. Welcome to the podcast. If you've listened to this podcast before, then you may know what we're about to skip. The way this works is if we get at least 10 shikos... What are shikos? Shares, likes, or follows. Both. Shares, likes, or follows on any one of our social media platforms, not our... Any one of our pages on the social media platforms that are available, then... And we get a

review, then we don't tell you the step-by-step process of giving us a review. Yep. Now, if we... And so, in this case, we got 10, and we got a review, so we're going to skip that section. We will tell you, though, how to engage with us or how to shiko us, and there's a number of ways you can do that on, obviously, social media platforms, and that would be like facebook.com slash... E-web results. Instagram.com slash... E-web results. Twitter.com slash... E-web results. YouTube.com slash... E-web results. And, of course, don't forget the always breathy... LinkedIn.com slash company slash... E-web results. All of those will take you to our social media platform page or whatever, and go ahead and shiko us while you're there. If you're a PHP genius or a WordPress guru, we're probably looking for you. Go ahead and submit an audio resume, 713-510-7846. Oh, and I skipped a section, Chuck, since you lifted your phone. If somebody's watching the podcast right now, they should... What should they do with some sort of electronic device that could tweet? Oh, they should tweet us. Hashtag SEO podcast. This is number 333. Be sure to tag us in it. At E-web results. At best SEO podcast. That way we can follow you back and do all of our social networking stuff. Excellent. If you're looking for a free website analysis, we can get that free comprehensive website analysis over to you. All you need to do is go to our website, ewebresults.com, and you cannot miss that form. Please do that. It's of significant value. Everyone who goes through that process is very happy. I don't know what we would charge for it, so get it before we start charging for it. Chuck, do we have any algorithm cataclysm? I do have some algorithm cataclysm. All right, time for the favorite segment of the show, the algorithm cataclysm. Oh, yeah. Even Chuck was shaking on that one. I'm sitting on that one over here. He almost fell over. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. This is a pretty big algo

cat, too. A pretty big algo cat. Yeah, so consider reviews, right? So Google is now making a change to the search engine results page. So they're going to highlight any best-reviewed places to eat and drink in your search results. So if you don't, let's say, know what you're in the mood for, and you ain't sure what the best place is to go for it, you may do a search for something like an example they gave was a Thai restaurant. And if you do that, then Google is going to return with what it thinks is the best result based off of critical reviews and mentions and other articles such as top 10 lists and some of the top full review sites. So another reason you want to push for reviews and get mentions about your company on all these sites. Here at eWebResults, we actually have a system called, well, the letters are CSSR. CSSR stands for Customer Service Survey and Reviews, where we actively pursue reviews for your customers. There is no more active way. I've never heard of it. Chuck and I have been in the industry for quite some time, and we created it here at eWebResults. So if you're interested in that, let us know, and we can help you out with that. So, you know, algorithm, cataclysm, always really important. So it's an interesting day. I don't have any news. Chuck, do you have any news? I have one piece of news. I have one piece of news, and I thought it was pretty relevant also. Instagram. Instagram has taken a bite out of Snapchat, right? And so, you know, Snapchat is known for providing videos that you can share that disappear, right? And they call it stories. Well, Instagram has rolled out the same exact feature, literally duplicate. And they're calling it Instagram stories. And they just rolled it out this week. I got an invite to it yesterday, haven't really tried it, but we're going to see. And so I think that, personally, they're going to draw a dividing

line. Either half of the people who use Instagram but don't use Snapchat probably won't use Snapchat. They'll continue to use Instagram. And then those people who use both, I think they'll probably end up migrating to whatever platform they have that has the biggest following. So, yeah, makes sense. Wow. All right. So, I do have a review. This is the reason you notice that there is no... It got close. Chuck, right there at the end of it, I was... Oh. I'm looking... This is funny because I'm looking at my iPad. And then I look at the screen and I'm like, wait, it looked like my iPad. So, I was like, I don't know what happened. I don't have a camera. I don't have a body cam. You know, so that was odd. All right. So, the review is... It is, of course, five stars. It's a marketing consultant. It's Jen April. You know, Jen APR22 from Canada. It says, five stars across the board. Not only do I learn something with every podcast, but I have fun listening. I look forward to every new episode. Punch in the face to you, Jen. Jen, thank you so much for being a loyal listener and taking the time to write a review. And that review... Appreciate it. That was on iTunes, right? Yeah, that was iTunes. Excellent. I do have a PTIF. Now, this is an interesting PTIF. We have software that allows us to know who's been visiting our website. And there's one particular user. I think it's one particular user at Higher Information Group LLC who visits regularly. I'm assuming is a regular podcast listener. Just hasn't reached out to us yet. Or maybe they have and they own some other business or something. But punch in the face to you, whoever it is that works at Higher Information Group LLC. I got a PTIF also. All right. I wanted to give a punch in the face to Bavarian Window Cleaning. They hit us up on Twitter. They say, At EWebResults, Hashtag SLPodcast313, 314 and 315.

Big punch in the face for a great informative podcast. What's the wait time on our website or now? So, punch in the face to you guys there on Twitter. They're at Bavarian WC. I guess that explains why you asked me if I had reached out to Bavarian C yet. And I did not get a chance to do that today. I will do that first thing after meetings on Monday. We've got lots of meetings in the morning about client results. All right. So, that is the potato. Since I don't have any news, unless you've got anything else, it's time to jump into the meat. Well, like I said, I pulled this article back from Search Engine Journal by Len Marketing. It's called Email Marketing Myths that you thought were facts. And so, he has six myths in here, which are pretty cool because some of these I heard before. And some people think they're true. But he says they're really not. They're myths. They're not facts. And so, let's get right into it. Matter of fact, he starts off by saying that last year, the number of emails sent and received totaled over $205 billion. He said the world is, without a doubt, addicted to our inboxes. And so, it's because of that, that despite what ClickBank generating marketing gurus want you to believe, no email marketing is dead. And I mean, I totally agree with that statement. I've always said it. I've continued to preach it, that the inbox is still the most visited place on the internet. Absolutely. And so, as long as that's the case, email marketing is just going to continue to be extremely important. As long as that's true, it's going to be part of what we offer for our clients. Absolutely. One hundred. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So, it starts off with number one. Number one, the myth is that Tuesday is the best day to send marketing emails. It's interesting because I heard that before. Right, me too. He says, kind of consider this story. He says, it wouldn't be

Monday because people are getting in and catching up, and it wouldn't be Friday because people are getting ready for the weekend. Wednesday and Thursday, people are already in full swing and probably focused on work. And so, that would seem that Tuesday is the best day to send a marketing email. But, in fact, he says that's absolutely wrong. According to HubSpot, they took a look at the impact of the day of the week they had on email open rates. And for a large list, Tuesday was actually the worst day to send marketing emails. And so, you know, and I could see that. And what I kind of thought about was our process and how we tend to see emails. And with all the reports and analytics I look at, Friday afternoon seems to be the best time for us. We get high open rates. We get high engagement. And what I also notice is that when we send on Friday afternoon, we see opens throughout the following week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, they continue to get opens. And so, if I had to put our expertise on it, I would say Friday afternoons is probably one of the best times to send. Boom, Friday. Now we know. So, number two, number two on this list, he says you can only send a particular email once. He got a pro tip in this one here. I really love this one. He says he's always been a fan of repurposing content and getting more value out of it. Like, me too, right? And so, I like this tactic he shared by some old me, the founder of Nolan Kagan, for a program called EasyBid to get more mileage from every email you send. And he says, step one, take the same email you sent and change the subject line to something new. And then step two, email it out a week later to a list of your non-opens. I thought that was brilliant. Yeah, yeah. If that first title didn't work and you know who didn't open it because

the first title didn't work for them, change the title, send it to them. Exactly. Send it to your non-opens a week later. And so, I thought that was a great tip, pro tip, and we'll share that later. But he's absolutely right. You can send out email more than once, especially if you're repurposing it. And one of the things I like to highlight is the fact that usually you spend a lot of time, and in our case, we dedicate a lot of man hours to creating this newsletter. And so, it's just not a valuable use of resources to only send it once. It makes sense to send it out more than once. So, it's something we should probably incorporate. Absolutely. Number three. Should be built into some sort of platform, right? Where you're like, hey, here are my four or five titles. Next week, send it to the people who didn't open it. Next week, send it to the rest of them. Sounds like something that's probably within Infusionsoft or Salesforce. We'd have to see. But, yeah, you're right. Yeah. Number three. Three. Number three says, keep your marketing emails short. And remember, he's talking about myths that people think are facts. He says, keep your marketing emails short. And so, he actually asked these questions in an article. He says, what do your visitors and prospects care about? And how much are they willing to read about it? And, you know, I think it depends. I think it depends on who your target is and what you do. Like, if you're selling something, like a product or a service, then, yes, it is necessary to keep this email short right to the point. Feature, advantage, benefit, and that's it. Right? But maybe you're in the business of providing information. If that's the case, then I think, you know, a long-form email could work. It may be necessary. So, I'll take that one with a kind of grain of salt. You know, I think it really depends on who your target is determines really the length

of this email. And you probably should change it up, right? So, maybe that, you know, one email, a couple emails are pretty long, a couple are pretty short. And then monitor those. You know, which ones get read? Make sure you got a link at the bottom. Which ones get that link clicked more often? And you'll have your answer. Yeah, exactly, exactly. You have to test the measure. You have to test the measure. Number four. Four. It says, keep your subject lines short. And, again, he's talking about a myth that people think is a fact. He says, keep your subject lines short. And I kind of think this one is debatable also. I think it depends. Similar on the same criteria as the previous point. Like, if you're in the product business, you're providing a product or service, then that subject line probably should be short. It should mention that product and be, you know, pretty much straightforward. But what I've also realized, and as I referenced our process, what's worked for us is really treating titles or subject lines like blog titles. You know, we try to get someone to click. We want the intent for them to click and engage. And that's what's been most effective for us. And as long as we treat it like that, then we kind of fall in the right criteria that fits mobile browsers and wherever else this email may be viewed at by treating it like an optimized page title. Yeah. Makes sense. Let's see here. Number five. Five. Number five was a kind of cool one also. It says, number five, the fifth myth about email marketing that people think are facts is that unsubscribes are bad. Yeah. Unsubscribes are bad. He actually says unsubscribes are actually awesome. He says they remove people from your list who are unlikely to buy from you, which in turn saves you money with your email software. Almost all of them charge based on the size of your list. Great point. Great point. He goes on to say, in fact,

savvy email marketers strategically try to get unqualified leads to unsubscribe from their list on purpose to maximize the ROI or the email marketing efforts. Another way to look at that is if you're going to take your current list and instead of just trying to get people to drop off, you can just move people up kind of the sales ladder and say, okay, anyone who engages on this next level, those people get marketed to more often. These people maybe haven't dropped off, so it's once a month, and the ones who have engaged get once a week. And so then, yeah, you're just going to get the same savings. Yeah, kind of move them to a separate list, a different campaign almost. Absolutely. And I kind of was thinking something similar because I think bulk unsubscribes are bad, right? If you send this mail out on Friday like we do and on Saturday, you know, you get 10, 20% unsubscribes, then that's a problem. That's a problem. But if they happen over time, then that's okay. You know, at the end of the day, I think it's okay because he's right. You know, you want to get people off the list who aren't going to engage and get people on the list who at least have a higher likelihood to click it and go back to the site or forward it to somebody who else could use it. But if people are not even opening it, not even looking at it, then, yeah, I'd take your approach and be really strategic and push them off to another list. And so that way you can continue to send them something, but definitely get them off your main list. Boom. Makes sense. Last one, number six. Six. There's a marketing email should be branded and polished, right? And he goes on to say he works from a company called Groove. That's a myth, right? And he says that they're testing at Groove for some of their email drips. He says, especially with customer onboarding, plain text emails with no

logos or colors at all converted to bits. I was like, I could kind of see that. Yeah. But again, I think it depends on the audience. If you're in a situation where you're providing information and you're just sending out articles and things like that, then, yeah, plain text, no branding, white background, very simple, will likely be extremely effective. But if you're providing a service or a product, you know, you're selling Jordans, then I need to see a good picture of this Jordan. I need to see the Champs store logo. I need to see a coupon, right? Maybe you're providing a service. Then I need to see a tankless water heater. I need to see a smiling face and some people enjoying the hot water. And so I think it really depends on who your audience is. And that should really drive how you design that email. I think it can depend, like, also where the audience is in the process. So I can tell you we've got a sales process where I make a phone call and then I actually put those people who get through that first phone call into a drip campaign. That drip campaign, I actually had to, I went and found software that used my Google apps to send it from my account and it's straight text. And so it's really simple. No, it's not designed at all. No fluff. And it's simple, easy to read. I get good responses from the prospects. And then when they become a customer, the first thing I sent is branded. Exactly. Right? You're now a customer. Here's branded stuff. You're expecting stuff from me. You want stuff from me. So, yeah, I think it depends where they are in that process. Definitely. Definitely, man. Well, that was email marketing myths that you thought were facts by Lynn Marketing and the good folks over at Search Engine Journal. Punch in the face to you, Lynn. Nice article. Excellent. Well done. Do we have any what news, sir? I do not have any what news. All

right. Well, so if you, oh, this, I forgot this section. So, it confused me because I was ready to jump into the next one. So, here's what I'd like to say. If you like this podcast, please tell three people, not four because we don't want to get greedy. And not two because that's not enough. Just tell three people about this podcast right now. Go ahead and go ahead right now. Now's a good time. Chuck's comfortable. He's seated. I'm here standing and I'll wait. How could they, they could do that with the, they could do, yeah, three. Chuck counted down three. You got three. Easy. It's done. Send a link to somebody. Tweet about it. I don't care how you do it. Tweet it to them. Text it to them. Call them. Find our Facebook live posts and share it. Go to the Hangout. Share that. You're not restricted to how you contact three people and share this podcast. And you'll be doing us a great favor. So, thank you very much. Hey, if you're interested in growing your business with the largest, simplest marketing tool on the planet. The internet. Go ahead and call eWebResults for increased profit in your business. Our phone number is 713-592-6724. If you have a referral that's somebody who's interested in any aspect of internet marketing, that's website all the way down to or up to, however your perspective is, up to social media, the foundation's website. Social media is just another way to drive traffic to your website and get people to engage with your business. If you have a referral interested in internet marketing, send them our direction. When they pay their bill, we will pay you. Remember, I'm doing networking here in Houston. The network organization is called UpSocial Network. You can go to upsocialnetwork.com if you're in Houston. Go to UpSocial Network or you're going to be in Houston. Go to upsocialnetwork.com and you'll see when the next events are. And make sure you join us at one of those events. We were filmed live here

at 5999 West 34th Street, Suite 106, Houston, Texas, H-Town. I don't know if the thumb's up. The thumb's not up, right? H-Town. And you can get a transcript, video, and audio of this podcast on our website, eWebResults.com. You guys have made us the most popular SEO podcast on iTunes. That is because of you. Thank you all so much. We've been downloaded in more than 100 countries. Thank all of you. I wish I could say thank you in all those languages. I will be honest. I'm not going to learn half of them. Yeah, I probably won't learn, you know, 10% of them. Yeah. All right. So, anything else, Chuck? That's good, man. All right. Until the next podcast, my name's Chris Perez. And Luis. Bye-bye for now. Slime Morale. All right. Balance check. Balance check. Three, three, three. Uh. Uh. S-E-O Podcast 333. I'm the S-E-O Rapper. You heard of me. Put it down with Chris. It's time to have a blast. It's the hangout. So the podcast. Uh. Uh. Woo-hoo. Three, three, three. Three, three, three.