Comments on: How Much E-Mail Is Too Much?

By: Melissa Burch

Melissa Burch — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:20:39 +0000

This fear of emailing too much comes from the point of view that what we send is a nuisance to people. I have found that the people who unsubscribe never were really interested in what I was doing…It is far better to provide excellent opportunities to the people who want it then not tell them about it.

I know that when someone I trust tells me about something they think is great it’s a gift…It is all the junk that everyone gets that is annoying–and then one person’s junk is another’s treasure–so you have to know what your audience really wants and then give them the best you can find in that interest they have.

By: Jay

Jay — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 07:36:00 +0000

Pat (above) makes a sound point. The volume of emails from ETR has recently increased significantly. Barraged by too much information, I’ve taken to archiving immediately your emails, emails to which I once would have given ten minutes of my day.
Of course I could unsubscribe. But why would I? It’s more straightforward for me to blacklist your email address, auto-archiving everything you send.
Relying on the opt-out rate as a measure of subscriber satisfaction is, at best, crude, at worst, naive.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:22:46 +0000

RE David’s comment: “2. ETR’s newsletter looks great, but I’ve heard that plain text is better than HTML format because there are fewer issues with delivery. You obviously disagree. Why?”

ETR sends out two versions of our newsletter everyday. A text only version and an HTML version. The version you see depends on the preference of the e-mail provider or receipient’s settings.

By: Rosa N. Gubin

Rosa N. Gubin — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:42:56 +0000

Re: The article on the e-mail frecuency.
I completely agree with the above comentaries.
In my case I read them some times but they are too long and most of them is selling.So I delete them.Every day is too much.

By: Pat

Pat — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:39:52 +0000

Re the article on email frequency:
The suggestions about when an opt-out rate signals you that you’re emailing too frequently makes mathematical sense, and may be the only practical yardstick. But it may not take into account the psychological aspect. A subscriber may be very annoyed by your email volume – but if they subscribe to a number of business e-pubs and skim-read them regularly for highlights/info, may not find it worth their while to actually unsubscribe until a)more time passes b)they’ve accumulated too many of your emails in their inbox that seemed of little use to them c)your content actually offends or angers them.
It’s easy to not satisfy subscribers, yet continue to keep their subscriptions for a time due to the default of inertia. The fact that they haven’t actually clicked the “unsubscribe” button this time doesn’t “tell” you they’re fine with the volume. What it also may not be “telling” you is they’re just too busy to bother.

By: Josephus

Josephus — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 11:29:45 +0000

I noticed quite a difference between the best steaks in the Netherlands and Canada. The grass in Holland is almost always wetter, whereas in Canada it is more of the harsher kind, due to a more dry type of climate. Cheese made in Holland tastes different from the same type of cheese made in Canada, even if they give it the same name.

By: David Hurley

David Hurley — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:48:02 +0000

Interesting article about how often you can mail your list.

A couple of questions:

1. I have set things up so my list is automatically notified when I post to my blog, so that alters any calculation of frequency. Would you recommend automatic notification of blog posts?

2. ETR’s newsletter looks great, but I’ve heard that plain text is better than HTML format because there are fewer issues with delivery. You obviously disagree. Why?

Thanks,

David Hurley
http://grasp-the-nettle.com