What the?!? 5 Weird but Useful Email Marketing Statistics

How many articles and blogs on “need-to-know” email marketing statistics do you read a week? If you’re like us, the answer is A TON. And after a while, all these stats seem to blur together; you’ve seen ’em all. But what happens when the experts share a stat that is truly off the wall? Here, we’ve compiled some of the stranger pieces of advice and weird statistics we’ve come across in our research-those odd nuggets of information that make you scratch your head and think, “huh?” at first but ultimately prove the key to email success.

Weird Stat #1: Movie or Song Titles

Did you know that including movie or song titles in email subject lines increases open rates by 26.2%? This is great if you’re trying to sell that movie or song, but for the rest of us, this may be a tough-though not impossible-statistic to actually act on.

The lesson to learn here is that including something unexpected and surprising in the subject line, from Godfather quote to Spice Girls lyric, will typically bring a better result than a boring, predictable subject line.

Weird Stat #2: Fat Fingers

It turns out that those high click-through rates you achieved in your last email may have been too good to be true. Research from GoldSpot Media suggests that as many as 38% of clicks made on mobile devices are, in fact, accidental. What do the researchers believe is at fault? Our fat fingers trying to work on small screens.

With 2/3 of all emails being read on smartphones or tablets, this could potentially point to a bigger problem. Should we view all mobile click-through rates with skepticism? Or could something else be skewing the results of this study? There’s no answer yet, but it’s something to keep in mind next time you downsize your emails to mobile.

Weird Stat #3: Digital Goldfish

The BBC has reported that humans today have a nine-second attention span-about the same as your average goldfish. Apparently we’re all so highly distracted in our virtual fishbowls that nobody stops to read anything anymore.

Does this mean we should assume nobody is reading our emails? And what happens when our attention spans collectively shorten to eight seconds…seven seconds…and so on? Are we careening toward total goldfish anarchy?!?!

We don’t think so. This issue matters only to highlight the fact that we all need to focus on the real challenge of email marketing: creating emails that truly capture the reader’s attention. Sure, readers are impatient. Sure, they’re going to delete your email if it’s not relevant to them. So make it a priority to find the right balance of informative content that is also easily consumed and you’ll have yourself some happy goldfish.

Weird Stat #4: Send Emails on Wednesdays at 3:52 pm

No, wait! It’s actually Monday at 6:56 pm. No, wait! it’s Saturdays at 5:30 am. No, wait! It’s only on odd-numbered days that don’t end in the letter “Y.” As you may have found out, experts love to discuss research that says a particular time or day of the week is best for sending out email campaigns.

In reality, there is no “perfect” time to send emails. Everyone’s list is unique, and there is simply no guarantee that what works for one list will work for another. Instead, find what works for your list. Test a variety of send days and send times until you know for sure what your customers prefer.

Weird Stat #5: Marketers versus Average Consumers

ExactTarget recently published a fun infographic that describes how marketers behave differently from the average consumer. Among other random stats, apparently 93 % of marketers have made a purchase as a result of an email message, whereas only 49% of “regular” consumers can say the same thing. Marketers are also more likely to own smartphones, like a brand on Facebook and make purchases from daily deal sites like Groupon.

All of which points to the real question: So what? The bigger issue here is not that marketers are smart, trendy and perceptive but rather that within every list, there are distinct segments with distinct preferences and personalities. As an email marketer, identifying and categorizing those segments will be one of the most effective tools at your disposal for improving your campaign results. And at the end of the day, results are all that matter.

What weird email marketing nuggets have you come across? Share them in the comments below!