How Much is Too Much?

By: Amy Lewis

Posted on 08/25/2011 - 11:01am | From the Communications Blog

In my last post, I suggested companies need to repeatedly deliver their marketing messages, using various delivery methods, to be heard. That begs the question, how much is too much? No one wants to be seen as annoying or become a source of mockery (Remember the commercial, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”?). At what point do people start unsubscribing from your feed? Where do you draw the line?

The answer depends on a couple of factors:

1. Have they done business with your company before? If they have and had a good experience, they will have a higher threshold for your marketing.
2. How engaged is your audience? If they’re enthusiasts for your company, your products or the lifestyle your company represents, then they will feel like an insider who is privileged to receive your information.  Outdoor enthusiasts, for example, like to be associated with companies such as Gander Mtn. or REI that support their lifestyle. Frequent communication will be more welcomed from them than emails or direct mail selling Rolex watches. Segmenting your recipients by degree of loyalty will help your efforts be most effective.
3. Are you mixing it up? Email may be the preferred delivery method of communication today but your marketing will be more effective if there are varied interactions with customers and prospects. Don’t rely solely on email, mail or any one delivery vehicle.
4. What are you communicating? Probably the most important factor in your success is delivering information that’s useful to your recipients. Author and marketing guru Seth Godin feeds daily messages to his fan base without ramifications because he provides content they want. Conversely, I have “unfollowed” people on Twitter because they’re too self promotional. The more helpful your information, the more your company will be seen as a resource rather than a company trolling for the next sale.

Since email is the preferred communication method by many, I posed the question in a very unscientific poll: “if you’ve subscribed to a company’s email feed, at what point do you get tired of email marketing messages from them?”

Frankly, I was surprised that most said that at one email a week they’d unsubscribe. Apparently others have a higher tolerance than I do. Twice a month is generally my breaking point.

Jen Joly of Priority Integrated Marketing, cited an example of a client that had increased its email distributions from quarterly to include up to two emails per month and then surveyed the recipients about the message frequency. Because the messages were tailored to the recipients, nearly 90 percent said the frequency was "about right."

She says, “You can push it a little bit if you know your audience and target your content to them.”