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E-mail Marketers: 'Don't be afraid to send too much e-mail' ...Agree or disagree?
I came across this claim in a quick summary of Hubspot's recent survey of over 9.5 billion emails on The Science of E-mail Marketing. "Don't be afraid to send too much e-mail" struck me as a curious finding both from an e-mail marketing "strategy" standpoint and from a consumer standpoint. Do you agree? Why or why not?
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5 Answers
Sarah. Sarah. Sarah. Your preference for the amount of email you can consume is much different from me or other consumers. I am quite sure LS or Groupon or other daily deal senders struggle with a frequency issue as well.
Some people can tolerate 1 email a week and others can stomach 2-3 a day. It all boils down to how well targeted they are. Let me give you an example....I subscribe too the daily Business Insider which is powered by my colleagues at SailThru. They send me content based on my interests I gave as well as my behavior on the site. If they decided to send me 2 emails a day, I would love it since I know that pretty much everyone of the emails has something that I am interested in. Another case in point: I subscribe to Thrillist and UrbanDaddy and know that their content is right up my ally. I enjoy reading both emails and would not mind if they sent me more.
Sure..if I send you crappy, irrelevant emails that make no sense to you then less is more. However, if I send you something 1 or 2 times a day something that is completely targeted to your interests...something that adds value to your job or life, then I am quite sure people can tolerate it. This, coupled with a good opt-down and cadence choice to the subscriber is the key to increase frequency.
However...most companies can't or wont invest the time to get it right when it comes to email marketing. Some think that more is best and that everyone should have the same experience as the others...in that case then again, I agree with you that less is more.
Andrew Kordek
Co-Founder, Trendline Interactive
A Email Marketing Agency
Twitter: @andrewkordek & @trendlinei
Email: andrew@trendlineinteractive.com
With Andrew (again) on the importance of relevance and engagement of the recipient with the sender.
IMO too much email is one of the primary causes of planners and revenue driven people not understanding the nature of email consumption.
A campaign did well?
Then send it every day.. or even 3 times a day...
To the same list?
Yes, they may have missed it... or it may have gone to junk....
Shall we change the creative?
If you have time...
It isn't doing well and more!
Then send it again, to more people, more often - eventually they will click.
In this case (exaggerated example, I would suggest you do not try this) it will definitely force a law of diminishing returns.
At a marketing conference last fall, a presenter stated, "Unless you are touching your contacts 24-36 times a quarter, you are under-marketing."
There was an audible gasp throughout the room. A woman stood up and responded, "That's not marketing ... that's stalking. That's harassment, plan and simple." Applause.
The e-mail outfits have a vested interest in "more is better." Conversely, we counsel our BtoB clients to take the radical approach of actually asking contacts when, how often, under what circumstances, and in which media they want to stay in touch. Customers seem to like that better than spam.
Disagree. Unless you work for Living Social Deals or Groupon, there is such a thing as “too many emails.” Being bombarded with email after email can be annoying, slightly creepy, aggravating, and essentially a turn off to a consumer. In my experience as a consumer, I expect a follow-up email after I register to receive information, but as soon as I start getting more than three emails thereafter I mark it as spam because it becomes too much of a hassle. In the case of email marketing, less is more.
Constant emails to customers from companies that just repeat earlier emails are spam. They not only make me want to unsubscribe, it makes me not want to shop with them again either.
I only want to know about special offers or new stock and then only once per time. As a result this is all we send out to customers. Their email lists are too full of junk already for us to want to add to it. Sure way to lose customers.
The only people who tell you lots of email campaigns are good are the email marketing companies making money out of their services. I prefer to trust what customers tell us - fewer is better.
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