Cutting Through the Clutter

Chances are good that your email inbox is already overloaded with messages. But get this: It's predicted that by 2014, consumers will receive more than 9,000 email marketing messages a year. That translates to about 25 messages each day, double the average of 10 to 12 that people receive today. The numbers are courtesy of Forrester Research, which surveyed 3,730 U.S. online consumers and 286 email marketers.

Of course, the news is a mixed blessing because while on one hand, it’s good to know that email marketing is catching on as a popular marketing strategy, it also means inboxes will continue to get even more crowded than they already are. If you want your message to be seen and read, how will you break through that clutter?

One of the best ways to do it is to ensure that you are sending the most relevant messages possible. The lazy practice of mass email just won’t work. It never did. The less targeted your messages are, the more inclined your subscribers will be to unsubscribe from your mailing list.

In fact, a separate survey, by the marketing services company Epsilon, found that the leading reason why people unsubscribe from marketing mailing lists is not because they receive too many — it’s because the messages just aren’t relevant enough.

Men don’t want to hear that there’s a special offer for women’s clothing, and dog owners don’t want to know about a new line of cat toys. No wonder 67 percent of people in North America said they unsubscribed because the content in the emails they received didn’t apply to them.

Not that frequency is an irrelevant concern. In the same Epsilon survey, 64 percent of North American respondents said they have unsubscribed from an email newsletter subscription list because they just get too many messages from the sender.

The takeaway from these surveys is simple: Keep your messages relevant to your audience, and don’t over-communicate. If you’re not sure what kind of articles your audience wants to read, or how often they’d like to hear from you, ask them and adjust your strategy accordingly.

When you target your messages effectively, you have the best chance to making a greater impact on your customers.