In this article, Loren McDonald debunks 6 email marketing myths:

• Myth #1: The CAN-SPAM Act doesn’t require permission
  “CAN-SPAM is just a start. Permission, in fact, is the foundation of customer relevance and trust.”
• Myth #2: Open rates are a good measure of email success
  “In the early days of email, the open rate was a valued metric because it captured who opened and, by inference, who then viewed or read the email. Today, the preview pane and image blocking have turned the open metric into a tired, inaccurate and irrelevant metric that no longer measures what it was originally intended to.”
• Myth #3: Email is cheap, so send again. And again.
  “Consumers and the ISPs control the ecosystem. Yes, increased frequency can often deliver short-term results. But it also increases list churn through higher spam complaints and unsubscribes and, subsequently, higher acquisition costs to replace the lost customers and revenue.”
• Myth #4: “I don’t control my delivery rates”
  “There is, however, no magic pixie dust to sprinkle on the email list to get high delivery rates. It simply requires following well-publicized best practices.”
• Myth #5: Larger lists are better
  “Yes, growing your email database is important because you’ll typically lose about one-third of your list annually through normal churn. Additionally, various studies suggest that one- to two-thirds or more of your list members are actually inactive (no opens or clicks for some extended time frame).”
• Myth #6: Moving beyond “batch and blast” is really difficult
  “No, it isn’t. Advances in email marketing software now make sophisticated techniques such as lifecycle, trigger- and behavior-based email programs possible for marketers at all tiers.”

Read the full article here.