I’m probably going to get some flack for this post, but I’m writing it anyway because I feel strongly about its importance. Most marketers will tell you that your e-mail list is golden. It is. It’s a big deal when someone gives you permission to contact them via e-mail, especially considering how overwhelmed we all are by e-mail these days.
Anyone who has been on my list for awhile can tell you that I don’t send a lot of e-mail. I’m lucky if I manage to send my newsletter once each month. Call me a lousy marketer or call me someone who is overly-protective of my list. What I know for sure is that I don’t want to abuse the privilege I have to send e-mail out to a captive audience.
I am highly selective about what I will send out; I don’t participate in other people’s book marketing campaigns or event promotion, and I try to save up most announcements for my newsletter. As a result, I have a high subscriber retention rate.
Am I missing out on opportunities? Probably. I could be participating in tons of affiliate programs and making more money by selling, selling, selling. But I choose not to. As a subscriber to other people’s lists, I grow more wary each year. Even if the content is great, having it land in my Inbox on a weekly basis–or more than once a week (yikes!)–is just too much. I frequently unsubscribe from lists that hit me too often, and especially if they do nothing but sell.
Now it’s all permeating through social media. I can’t get over the amount of e-mail I’m receiving in my Facebook inbox. Invitations to open houses in cities on the other side of the country, endless invites to teleseminars that have nothing to do with my interests, and the list goes on.
I wonder if marketers are paying attention to their unsubscribe rates? Or perhaps they are simply working to add new subscribers en masse to make up for the ones they are losing? I fear that all of us who send e-mail are collectively causing a major shift. People may stop subscribing to lists altogether due to the overwhelm of too many messages and not enough time. We will need to continue finding new ways to reach people. Social media presents great opportunities, but soon that will be saturated too.
Call me crazy, but I will continue to respect my list.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
November 17th, 2009 at 11:19 am
I completely agree. I do a lot of email marketing for clients and some for myself and I am always very aware of how much mail is being sent and that it has value for the people getting it. With so many lists and so much email flying around these days it is so easy for people to unsubscribe simply to get a break from the vast email avalanche we get every day. I don’t want to be part of that problem if I can at all help it. I watch my unsubscribe rates on all campaigns like a hawk.
November 17th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I agree with you Stephanie. I have been deleting lots of individuals and companies on Linked in, Facebook and emails because of their incessant posts. Your message is Spot On!
November 18th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Yes, it does seem that people still feel that if they ‘shotgun’ and send out to everyone, someone is bound to listen. A prospect just contacted me to see if I could help him with his email marketing. He claims to have a list of nearly 25,000 that he wants to grow and wants to send out 2-3 emails to this list each week. His take on it all is that if people don’t want his ‘spam’ they can just delete it. I explained there are legalities to email marketing in addition to the ethics of it and that I couldn’t work with someone who viewed email marketing that way.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:45 am
I couldn’t agree with you more! I don’t bombard my list with affiliate sales, and I, too, try to save up everything for the ezine. I have unsubscribed from lists that send me emails hourly/daily/weekly/anytime someone sneezes/etc. If it means I miss out on a few bucks, so what? I respect my list and their time. Period. Thanks for writing about this.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:20 am
You couldn’t be more right on this one, Stephanie. I’m especially annoyed when I receive an email that is so obviously non-personal. Invitations to events in another country are a perfect example. That said, I do appreciate receiving messages about teleseminars, etc that I may be interested in.
When we agree to share our contact details with someone we’ve met virtually, we imply that we’d like to hear more of what he or she has to say and consider whatever he or she has to offer. The virtual world is about relationships and, as such, are built through online communication. Chat, Skype and email are the main media for this, and it’s unlikely that you or anyone else will be able to build much of a relationship with another person by sending or receiving something once per month.
I’m sure there’s a fine line between what is enough communication and what is too much; but, it’s irresponsible of us to say that everyone who sends out a message more than once per month is spamming you. As subscribers we, too, have a responsibility for communicating our expectations to the person sending us the messages.
Cheers, Bruce