Too Much Email!

Everyday, I think I unsubscribe from at least two newsletters because they over-message me. I don’t know about you, but I peronsonally can’t stand for anyone to send me more than one communication per-day, unless I’ve written them back.

It feels like the times when someone leaves you a message and then calls you, again, before you get the chance to call them back. It is annoying and a little creepy. If you have so much information to send, please wait to send it all at once.  You’re filling up my inbox, and I can’t take it! I said that I would receive communications from you, not that I wanted to date.

There are some general rules that I suggest following, depending on your product, that should help you hit the sweet spot of email and text communications.

Your customer is not going to forget about you in a couple of hours or days. Thus, unless your email is a “Daily Digest” or contains a strong offer that will drive purchase decisions, keep your communications to a maximum of two or three per week. A good rule of thumb, is message each hand-raiser via email, under 15 times per month.

Your communications will seem overly extensive if you’re not connecting.  Copy is most important, so make sure you write to fill a need and drive action. Add some personal information but stay away from names in the subject line. Make sure your creative pops, but not with a ton of graphically rich content slowing download of the message. If someone has to wait for a communication, then it will seem like there are more of them. Once again, the main point is to drive traffic to a spot where a consumer can learn more or purchase something. So, leave all of yor fancy graphical tricks to the landing page.

Research what has worked well in your industry. eMarketingPapers is an aggregator of many of the research firms that can help you get knowledge about almost any industry. You need to know what the customers in your product category will and will not accept, in terms of email communications. Please speak to your customers in their language. It is a great way to respect them as a message receiver and communicator.

Finally, give people options. I was assaulted by an email program from Busted Tees, not long ago.  I bought one shirt from them, and now I heard from them all the time. It reminded me of this time when I was 5 years old and I fed a squirrel, in the backyard, a couple of nuts.  That squirrel came around constantly after that. Popping his furry little head up at me while I was on the swing, or attacking me when we were playing freeze tag was not out of the ordinary for him. I finally had to hit it with my toy shovel, repeatedly, to get him to leave me alone.

I finally got to that  same point with the Busted Tees email in my inbox, and clicked on the unsubscribe button with ferocity. To my surprise, I was greeted with an opportunity to reduce the number of communications per day/week to a number that was more to my tolerance level.  I clicked on the one a week communications option, to see if they would follow through.  They did, and I will shop with them again because of that.

Moral of the story, is a little absence makes the heart grow fonder. Help your prospect enjoy the excitement of receiving your communications, instead of the drudgery of deleting another unnecessary email. Communicate in terms that add value to your product and gives some incentive to the receiver for taking their time to sign up and read your communications. Lastly, look for stars in your field and adopt some of their tactics to help your conversion rates. You will see greater return on investment and a better brand image because of these efforts.