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How Much Email Is Too Much?
Posted By: mjohnson on 2/16/2007 1:47 PM (CST) 125 Points
I'm looking to get some opinions about how much email is too much.

I'm in a situation where I took over for someone who (IMHO) utilized email too frequently, and I want to scale back due to concerns about audience fatigue (which is going to be a challenge in itself since most of the program/product managers here have been trained that marketing will send out an email on their behalf just about anytime they ask.)

So without getting into too many of the gory details I will say that we are a small company that offers education and training to technology professionals, these are all opt in names, and that along with e-newsletters (which have a separate subscriber list, but about 30% crossover with our mailing lists) we can at times send 6-8 messages in one month.

So folks, give me your opinions: How much is too much, and why? Any thoughts, opinions, and comments are greatly appreciated.

Posted by: MRowland Accepted Answer
2/16/2007 2:11 PM (CST)
Hi Michelle,

Ah the dilemma ...

Our experience with a couple of technology companies with certification programs has been that the volume approach does not work. One company watched their unopened mail metrics start increasing and unsubscribes rise when they went from 2 emails a month to 4. If you are at 6-8 per month, you need to do a metrics analysis of your open rates and click through (referrals) to your landing pages from these emails and newsletters.

How much valuable information can your company possibly have that would interest a recipient to open 6-8 emails per month? Even the largest technology companies cannot do that. So, you are moving into the wasted efforts area by doing this...your prospects and customers are going to tune you out.

Have you updated your site's email preferences page in the past 12 months? If so, have the metrics changed regarding the number of your opt-in members who have reduced the amount of email they want from you versus those who asked for more or left it alone?

If you don't allow the members to control the flow, you'll need to track the opt out/unsubscribes carefully.

You should also consider sending a short survey to your customers/clients/prospects who have opted in to receive your emails and give them the opportunity to "vote" their opinion on how often your company should contact them on each topic (deals, new products, etc.). Give the respondents a dialogue box to add free form comments. You might be surprised by what you hear from them. (And these comments are the best evidence that you can give the marketing teams about why they need to slow down the email train...)

Good luck!

Mike
Impact Interactions
 
Posted by: Tracey Accepted Answer
2/16/2007 2:29 PM (CST)
I also email to technology pros, and usually send 1-2 emails per month.

First, can you combine your messages into one or two emails, such as in a monthly newsletter?

Second, web marketing is obviously moving towards giving the customer/prospect more control over information and how they interact with your company. Perhaps a longer term solution, but you could consider posting your information to a website (to a password-protected customer site if the information is not public), and setting up RSS feeds so that your readers can subscribe only to what is relevant to them, and they can choose how often to get the information.

The key, I think, is producing useful content. If your info is all sales promotions, you won't get subscribers. If you produce info that helps them with their job and informs them about events, etc. that they're interested in, you'l keep your subscribers.

Even if you don't want to set up RSS feeds, etc., give your subscribers as much control over communication as possible. Even if your unsubscribe requests aren't going up, that doesn't mean people are reading your messages... I don't know the statistic, but I believe most people don't even bother to unsubscribe, they just delete... so track click-through and response rates, too. As Mike suggested, survey your readers, and maybe do test campaigns - 1 month with 1-2 communications, for example - to compare your click-through and response rates.
Hope that helped, good luck!
 
Posted by: Inbox_Interactive Accepted Answer
2/16/2007 2:50 PM (CST)
Depends on what you're trying to. If each email is supposed to generate revenue, then mailing more often might be okay.

I'd let your open rates, click through rates, and unsubscribe rates be your guide. As stated, the unsubscribe rate alone is not a good gauge, as many people just delete and move on.

I know of a seminar company that used to email just about the same promotion email to its list more than once a week...sometimes every couple of days as the event would draw nearer. I thought this was crazy, until I saw that each time they sent the email, they would get a few orders with no real negative backlash from the list.

If we sent the one email once per month, their revenue would plummet.
 
Posted by: mzimmer999 Accepted Answer
2/16/2007 3:08 PM (CST)
As others have pointed out, there are lots of variables to be considered and much depends on the purpose and content of each e-mail effort. In almost all cases, you will find that there are segments of your mailing list that respond well to more frequent touches and those that more quickly experience audience fatigue.

If the content in each effort is fresh, then the fatigue factor might be less of an issue. But if the content of the e-mails is similar or if each is largely a promotional attempt, then your concerns may be well-founded.

There's no need to guess at the right number. You can test several hypotheses and see what happens.

In in simplest form (and you could certainly test a wider set of possibilities), separate your mailing universe into two groups. Continue to mail one at a higher intensity level and scale the other back to something like half of that rate. Watch response rates, customer service inquiries, etc. to determine the overall impact. But also look for segments of the higher intensity that respond at a high rate and see how similar addressees behave in the lower intensity group.

If some of the high responders in the high intensity group respond at lower rates with less intensity, then that's a sign that you might lose orders/volume by dropping e-mail frequency across the board. If this group's response is about the same in either group, then that tells you that the extra e-mails aren't generating incremental value.
 
Posted by: Jon Aston Member Response
2/16/2007 3:08 PM (CST)
Mike and Tracey both give terrific advice.

It should be easy enough to let individual readers choose whether they want (for example) to receive breaking news, a weekly digest, monthly, or quarterly newsletter...or any combination thereof. Why not?

In all cases, "hook and link" to your website, where you can serve up more targetted content and conversion opportunities.
 
Posted by: michael Member Response
2/16/2007 3:35 PM (CST)
Michele,
That's the beauty of an opt-in list. Ask and keep asking.

We work with one client that says for absolutely certain 1/month is enough. However, when we've mixed in a "bulletin" e-mail, it pulls very well. But it has to be a REAL bulletin...something completely different, to quote Monty Python.


Michael
 
Posted by: mjohnson Author Response
2/16/2007 4:08 PM (CST)
Mike, Tracey, et al--

Thanks everyone for your feedback! This is very helpful.

The survey idea is a good one. I was considering that, so you validated my direction. Your questions really got me thinking about some things I had not considered.

I'm also intrigued by Mzimmers idea to split the list and test how mailing our frequency impacts business. I think we could glean a lot of useful info and it would give me some data to work with.

Thanks again all!
 
Posted by: A-Lux Member Response
2/16/2007 6:51 PM (CST)
Hi,

I just ran a test on this exact issue. I was sure one of the B2B companies I was working with had list attrition issues.

This was a promotion for 13 audio conferences that happened in December.

So we did an A/B split test.

A: received fewer emails promoting multiple audio conferences.
B: received an email for each audio conference timed out in one week intervals.

I can get into more details if you wish but, I just looked at the results and the fewer emails produced higher open rates, click though rates and a 76% increase in revenue. As a result I have advised them to make the "multiple" emails the control, and continue to start testing other variables next.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Ani Luxner
www.aniluxner.com
 
Posted by: manthony Member Response
2/18/2007 11:39 AM (CST)
Hi Ani,

That was very interesting to hear. What method did you use to segment your initial mailing list? Did you take a 10% nth, and test a smaller group for B or were the two groups split using some other measure (e.g. recency of purchase)?

Michelle, I was a Marketing Manager for a training company as well and we found that once a month was a good frequency to use for our e-newsletter. But it does depend on your target market, of course. I'd be very interested to see what the results from your survey were. How much response did you get and were there some clear suggestions that came from the results?

Best regards,
Michael
 


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