Earlier this week, my colleague Lindsay Kloepping blogged about benchmarking apples to bananas. It surprises me how many people still want to know what the “average statistics” are for many of the things related to email marketing: open rates, clickthrough rates, responsiveness to surveys, how long or short emails should be, how often a company should send email, etc.

While marketers are clearly trying to do what’s best, customary, and most effective, the real question they should be asking is, “what’s best for my own email programs?” Seeking statistical averages is, at the end of the day, not going to be much help.

Your email marketing program should be based on your company, your products or services, your customers or subscribers, and what you told them when they opted in. In reality, average numbers or general statistics are fairly irrelevant to your business, your newsletter, your email marketing.

I appreciate that people are just trying to do what’s best and are looking for advice. But no one else can tell you better what is the “best” or optimum for your business and your customers. Industry averages and market trends are just that: averages and trends. They only tell you what everyone else, in total, on average, in every other company - large or small, industry, type of product, type of email marketing program, etc. etc. - has done. Along the lines of, when you try to please everyone you’ll please no one, you’re email marketing is not an exercise of averages. It is an endeavor of your own unique business.

So, “go forth!” I say. Forge your own path. Be creative, be analytical, be daring. In other words, do what you think is best, based on your knowledge and your experience. Test if you are able. Analyze whenever you can. And make decisions based on your own results. That’s really all there is to it.

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