When one interviewee was asked if he had ever signed up to receive email newsletters he responded, “Yes, and I usually regret it.” Asked to clarify he went on, “I sign up for things thinking that I will get one or two emails every now and then, and then you start to be their best friend. I hate it! Don’t over communicate because that’s when I get angry.”
One Catapulter summarized the feedback she heard from consumers this way, “Consumers don’t want to be inundated with information. They want ‘to-the-point,’ relevant communication that isn’t annoyingly frequent.”
But how often is too often? When does the frequency of a program start to drive people away?
There are two ways I have seen used to measure this. First, measure engagement.. Looking at the percentage of emails consumers open—and the corresponding percentage of emails consumers click—can provide insight into the saturation level of your subscribers. If consumers continue to click through on emails, marketers using this method assume the subscriber is still satisfied. Generally, this is a safe assumption. However, there are downsides. It takes a good deal of effort to implement and stick with this type of segmentation. The marketer is supposed to pull back on frequency to segments where subscribers start to engage less often. This becomes difficult to do when others in the organization challenge the logic of limiting some mailings to a small segment of “highly engaged” subscribers.
The second method of limiting frequency is simply to ask. Video of the street interviews will serve as a supplement to a consumer survey fielded last month. In that survey, we found 64% of people said they were more likely to provide their contact information to companies that asked them about frequency. This is in essence a contract with the subscriber, which can generally be used to defend against the “why not send one more email?” question.
Either way, “how much email is too much?” is entirely in the mind of the recipient. What is too much for one subscriber is not enough for another.
Marketers wanting to take subscribers from the first-date (see Permission Makes All The Difference) to a relationship need to determine their frequency strategy. Moving to fast risks ending the relationship prematurely, while moving to slow allows the door to stay open for other suitors.
This post is part of a series on Consumer Perceptions of Marketing.
Previous post in series: Consumers Don’t Know What CAN-SPAM Is
Next post in series: When Marketing Becomes a Service
One Catapulter summarized the feedback she heard from consumers this way, “Consumers don’t want to be inundated with information. They want ‘to-the-point,’ relevant communication that isn’t annoyingly frequent.”
But how often is too often? When does the frequency of a program start to drive people away?
There are two ways I have seen used to measure this. First, measure engagement.. Looking at the percentage of emails consumers open—and the corresponding percentage of emails consumers click—can provide insight into the saturation level of your subscribers. If consumers continue to click through on emails, marketers using this method assume the subscriber is still satisfied. Generally, this is a safe assumption. However, there are downsides. It takes a good deal of effort to implement and stick with this type of segmentation. The marketer is supposed to pull back on frequency to segments where subscribers start to engage less often. This becomes difficult to do when others in the organization challenge the logic of limiting some mailings to a small segment of “highly engaged” subscribers.
The second method of limiting frequency is simply to ask. Video of the street interviews will serve as a supplement to a consumer survey fielded last month. In that survey, we found 64% of people said they were more likely to provide their contact information to companies that asked them about frequency. This is in essence a contract with the subscriber, which can generally be used to defend against the “why not send one more email?” question.
Either way, “how much email is too much?” is entirely in the mind of the recipient. What is too much for one subscriber is not enough for another.Marketers wanting to take subscribers from the first-date (see Permission Makes All The Difference) to a relationship need to determine their frequency strategy. Moving to fast risks ending the relationship prematurely, while moving to slow allows the door to stay open for other suitors.
This post is part of a series on Consumer Perceptions of Marketing.
Previous post in series: Consumers Don’t Know What CAN-SPAM Is
Next post in series: When Marketing Becomes a Service
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