How to Overcome Inbox Exhaustion

Everyone loves you, right? Your audience doesn’t mind how many times you email them. They’re always ready and waiting, poised to hear from you. They’re delighted to open your messages no matter how often they pop up, whether your email subject line or content is as dull as a dull thing from a very dull place or the last word in exciting. And they don’t mind if you go a bit off-piste with offers that aren’t strictly relevant.

Wouldn’t it be lovely! But the fact is, there are plenty of factors that soon lead to consumer inbox exhaustion. What are they, and how can you avoid turning people off?

Appropriate segmentation and targeting

There’s nothing worse than receiving an email marketing message which is completely irrelevant to your circumstances, desires, and needs.

Is an existing customer going to behave in exactly the same way as a hot prospect, someone who sits farther behind in the sales funnel? Probably not. Sensible segmentation delivers a framework in which you can target your message so it hits harder and reaches deeper into the reader’s psyche.

The same goes for targeting. Just because you bought a pair of snakeskin knickers last week, does it mean you’re in the market for an identical pair this week? Not necessarily. Careful targeting means you stand the best chance of hitting someone with an offer they can’t refuse. Perhaps the people who have already bought a pair of snakeskin pants might appreciate a special offer on a tiger skin pair? Or a zebra stripe vest?

Effective personalisation

If you know someone’s name, use it. If they’re on your database as a paying customer there’s no excuse for calling them ‘dear customer’ or dear sir’. The more you can show you know and appreciate someone as an individual, the better they’ll feel about your business.

Letting people know who you are at inbox level

There’s a fine balance between email subject lines that tell people who the email is from, and those that people simply can’t resist opening. If you can strike a good balance and create an irresistible subject line that also lets people know it’s from you, not some random spammer, you’re onto a winner.

Identifying the correct frequency of emails

Some email marketers blast out an endless stream of messages, others send out an email communication once a month or even less frequently. What works best? If your business is driven by trending topics and breaking news, for example, you’ll want to be on the ball. You might end up alerting people to fab new stuff every few days. If your business isn’t that sensitive, or works to a different timetable, less frequent might be better.

What about the best time of week?

If you’re operating B2B it might make sense to send out email campaigns during the week. If so it’s worth bearing in mind that people tend to be more grumpy and less willing to play ball on Mondays, while they’re often raring to go and more likely to respond to offers on Fridays. It’s usually best to send out your campaigns at the same time every week so people know when to look out for them.

You won’t know what suits you best until you test it.

Sending excellent information

Last but not least, don’t forget the power of quality content. If you send out a steady stream of excellent information that people love to receive, they’ll actively seek your emails out.

How do you know what works best for your business?

How do you know when you’ve cracked it? It’s all about testing, a classic direct marketing discipline that has stood the test of time, just as relevant to online marketing as it always has been for traditional direct mail and direct response campaigns.

When you test more than one thing at a time, you don’t know which has made the difference. Email marketing experts, like the nice people at Emarsys, know it’s best to tinker with your messaging, subject lines, frequency, personalisation levels, and so on, making one change at a time and establishing each one’s effectiveness before moving onto the next.