Last Thursday I Received 318 Emails… 12 Tips for Email Marketing & Management Survival

May 09, 2018

Last Thursday I received 318 emails.

It's not a personal record, but it's a lot of email.

I take responsibility. I'm a joiner. As a marketing pro and engaged citizen, I want to know what's going on in the industries in which my agency works... professional development support from insightful sources... news about my community... and certainly news from friends and family. So I sign up for things and join lists.

Given how cheap and easy it is to send email, no wonder it's proliferated. But the volume of email does pose challenges for both marketers and recipients.

Here's how I survive the multiplicity of emails, and lessons our agency shares with clients engaged in email marketing. 12 tips total. I hope they are helpful.

Six Tips for Email Marketers

The advent of automated marketing (Thank you, HubSpot, for better or worse!) has made email marketing as easy as ever but swelled our inboxes. To marketers, we counsel:

1. Don't overwhelm your list members. Pace and schedule your emails.
2. Do target your emails as precisely as possible. Segmenting your list members serves them best.
3. Do make the email content relevant and useful.
4. Don't stalk your targets. If you're retargeting website visitors, be careful not to spook them. Extreme example: "Hello. We know you were on our website eight minutes ago looking at that red sweater. You really want to buy it, don't you?" LOL.
5. Do apply a "brand test" to every email. Just as you make sure content is relevant and useful, ensure every email achieves a brand purpose.
6. Don't rely on email alone. You'll find using email as part of an integrated marketing mix actually makes the email perform better.

Six Tips for Email Recipients

Here's how I guard against insanity by managing email, including the 318 that popped into my inbox last Thursday.

1. Do turn off email notifications so you are not alerted every time an email arrives. ("Dance, monkey, dance.")
2. Do check email on a schedule, versus continuously, such as every hour or half hour.
3. Don't be overly concerned about unsubscribing from emails -- just delete them. I'm a Ruthless Deleter who strikes emails from senders I don't recognize or don't have time to hear from that day. By contrast, un-subbing, like Whack-A-Mole, is an unwinnable game. It also can be dangerous when the sender has malicious intent!
4. Don't use email for discussions that could be handled over the phone with more understanding and efficiency.
5. Do keep your emails, and email responses, short and as closed ended as possible.
6. Don't answer emails when you are totally stressed out. Obviously, it will make you more stressed out!

-Cary Brazeman