Sometimes, statistics shouldn’t be taken at face value.

For most fair-weather cyclists, their average power on a hill climb, versus any pro cyclist would be crushing.

Likewise, the grams of sugar in zero fat 'health' bars would probably negate any health benefits.

How about email marketing stats?

Well, let’s look at the computer hardware, software and services industry, according to digital marketing technology provider Silverpop, the best brands have 45 per cent of emails opened (not necessarily ‘read’) and click throughs of 16 per cent.

Now, that could include brands like Apple, and service providers that invoice by monthly email, which distorts the figures.

On average unique click throughs in the sector are 2.7 per cent.

So doing some maths and an assumption that your universe of data is 12,000 contacts delivers you 324 unique clicks (12,000 x 2.7 per cent).

That is 324 people that have read the email, and clicked on a link provided, landing on a web page.

Now, assuming that page has something compelling to say, other industry statistics show that two per cent of visitors really engage, like downloading content or browsing the website. If we calculate this we arrive at six people (324 x 2 per cent).

Marketing directors would call those ‘marketing qualified leads’, and they go into the company’s sales pipeline. Assuming that one in six of those converts, you end up at one sale.

Of course this could be a big sale, but one sale from 12,000 contacts? So… almost no one buys from email.

What’s the alternative?

Start with the 11,676 people who didn’t engage at all.

Businesses need to put themselves in the shoes of their target prospects and ask themselves: How would I want a new brand to start a relationship with me, when I haven’t overtly expressed an interest. Well, how about ‘valuably’?

Having put yourself in your prospects shoes, would you want that first contact to bring some new insight or moment of clarity; some wisdom and even a little humour? Most of all, you wouldn’t want to be asked for anything in return. Not at that first contact. So a promotion or discount - which requires a transaction - is not valuable at this first encounter.

Lead with valuable content, offered freely, and be happy they move at the pace that suits them. Even if they click through to your site, they’re likely still not ready to buy anything. So more value should be offered - like published articles, expert opinion, blogs and customer experiences, going easy on offers and promotions.

Then, brands should be with them every step of the way, being prepared for that moment when they are ready for an offer. A good marketing automation system will map and score their propensity to purchase, alerting the marketing and sales team when the time is right.

Not stopping there. Brands should ensure their PR coverage is bringing new eyeballs to their landing pages, using social channels to ‘atomise’ content, expanding their universe of contacts and blogging to boost natural search ranking.

Do all of this, and your ‘Attract Rate’ will eclipse the paltry click-thru rates of sales emails. This may be being a little tough on email - but understand that email is mostly just a channel for content, and no more.