Chart of the Week: Why Subscribers Stop Reading

Which has more impact on subscribers decision to ignore you, your message or all those other messages crowding your subscribers inbox?

There has been a lot of talk recently about inbox competition, I even predicted that it would have an adverse impact on response rates this year in ExactTarget's 2009 Almanac. Stefan Tournquist of MarketingSherpa shared information last week in his opening keynote at their Email Summit that indicated 72% of subscribers noticed an increase in the frequency of opt-in email they receive. He also shared that response metrics were down as a result--confirming my prediction within the first 3 months of this year.

Even so, other data from MarketingSherpa suggests that we are still largely in control of our own inbox destiny. Subscribers report that the top two reasons they unsubscribe from or ignore commercial email is tied to the individual senders behavior. The #1 reason? 58% said fthat emails that are not relevant cause them to disengage from the email. If we add in #5 on the list "my situation changed" (aka, irrelevant email that used to be relevant) then the number is even higher.

I interpret this as good news. We can't blame inbox fatigue on the bad practices of other mailers, we only need to look in the mirror. "They are sending more, so we need to send more" is flawed thinking. Instead of trying to keep pace with the competition think back to the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race.

However, there is one key difference in the email race. In the children's story it is the hare's overconfidence that causes him to lose. In email it will be your competitions lack of confidence that causes them to burn out their list. Sending email more frequently is a fear tactic aimed at driving short-term bumps in revenue. Increasing frequency is successful at meeting that short-term objective, but it sacrifices the health of your subscriber base in the long run. So, proceed with confidence and let your competitors sprint ahead. It won't be long before you pass them by.