A lot of people will encourage email marketers to look at your competitors to see what is working for them. This can be a good thing, but, only if you understand what is happening out there.
One of the strengths of online marketing is that we are able to snoop on our competitors relatively easily. Yet, the smart ones know that and can send out dummy emails or marketing efforts to throw you off of what they're really doing.
Not only that, but many times, even most of the time, they're doing tests themselves to find out what is best. You can really get off track if you look at something and quickly adapt it only because other marketers are doing it.
How do you look at competitors for some added insights then? The best thing to do is similar to what we used to do with spying out our competitors that used magazined to put their ads in. Don't look at something or use it as part of your strategy until you see it being used over a long period of time. That's really all there is to it.
In other words, like anything else, it must be done over a period of time before you know that it is working, even for your competitors. What are the email channels they are using? Are they mostly solo emails or putting ads in other newsletters? What are their techniques for getting new subscribers?
Look at everything over the long haul and you'll be able to trust those results far more than just checking things out once or twice.
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