When it comes to online messaging, you have a lot of ways to communicate with your audience. From website popups to interstitials to email campaigns, you can be in front of your audience with a lot of messages. It’s not uncommon in that situation to hear back from some of them that the frequency of messaging is more than they prefer. Most often, they will push back at the email channel.

TL;DR

If your email messages are relevant and interesting to your subscribers, there is no such thing as “too much email”.

Email is the easiest way to push back from the volume of messaging, because, unlike popups or interstitials, there is a reply-to address that goes to a human. That’s why you’ll often hear “You're sending too many emails.” 

When email is well-targeted, however, it’s not email that’s the problem.

Managing and Maximizing Email Volume

In consumer marketing, we see a dozen or more emails per day during the holiday season from companies like The Gap, Amazon or Walmart. These companies have a lot of data to analyze to determine the frequency of sending to maximize their results, and they do. They also have histories of purchase data, website visits and general sales data to leverage to determine what to send to your inbox, when and how often. 

What we can learn from their behaviors is that there's no such thing as “too much email” if the user wants to receive that message. 

Your job is to help leverage what you know about your subscriber to ensure that the messages you send are what they want to receive. You can then balance your email campaign schedule with that data to ensure that email syncs up with appropriate numbers and frequencies of popups, interstitials, SMS and other digital messaging so that they are not inundated with messages that are not relevant to their interests. 

Look at your messaging program holistically and remember that email is not a culprit, but instead the inflection point where most subscribers will respond. 

From there, leverage preference management with email.When your subscribers are saying they're getting too much email, it's because they're getting too much email that's not relevant to what they're interested in. Review their past behaviors to determine preferences, and even consider asking them to update those preferences. You can even set a preference for frequency of communication, such as daily, weekly or monthly, and leverage that into your campaign planning. 

When it comes to email, it's more about targeting than volume. Using segmentation for behaviors, interests and frequency preferences can be really helpful in ensuring that your subscribers get what they want, when they want it and are more receptive to your messaging. 

Are you worried that you’re sending too much email, or not enough? We offer consultation as well as campaign management, and can combine that with an email strategy that will maximize your results. We’re here to help, just ask.