One revelation (OK, it’s not a revelation unfortunately) in a recent report from the DMA in the UK is that the number of organizations with no strategy for the maximum number of times an e-mail address may be contacted remains unchanged from 2009, at 52%.

Over half of the respondents still have nothing in place to guide their e-mail marketing campaigns regarding frequency. This lack of awareness regarding a fundamental success factor in e-mail marketing leads one to wonder if companies actually believe that simply sending more e-mail the same old way is going to increase ROI. Of course, it won’t.
Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result is a waste of time. But it certainly seems to be the case in the e-mail marketing strategy of businesses that believe that simply increasing frequency is the way to encourage engagement and achieve a better ROI.

The competition for the inbox continues to increase. This competition comes from a variety of sources, including new ones such as social media. One Hotmail product manager noted that upwards of 20% of inbox traffic is actually social media notifications.
While it keeps getting harder and harder to be noticed in the inbox, most companies are not employing tactics to help overcome this problem. It seems to be something humans are prone to; we continue to use the same old tactics even when the battlefield has fundamentally changed.

To put it another way, it’s like meeting someone who doesn’t speak your language and trying to be understood by talking louder and slower to them.

Adding some insult to injury, the DMA report also notes the diminishing popularity of advanced e-mail marketing tactics such as triggered campaigns (like welcome messages or more advance trigger-based messages) which are initiated by a subscriber action. It’s disappointing to see this since there is plenty of data making it clear how effective such things as e-mail list segmenting and triggered e-mail marketing campaigns are.

Some tips to consider regarding frequency:

Create a preference center on your website and allow subscribers to help you do the initial segmentation of your list by choosing what is most relevant to them and what frequency they prefer. Don’t ask too many questions because no one likes filling out long forms. Just ask the important ones and give your subscribers as many options as possible while ensuring you don’t make the process too long and painful.

Make sure your e-mail marketing campaign hits those trigger points starting with a solid welcome campaign after the initial subscription. They’ve just given you their e-mail address, so give them something exclusive and valuable in return!

Have a prominent link to the preference center in your e-mail marketing messages and encourage people to use the center to adjust what they want and how often they get it. Preference centers are landing pages and landing pages can include powerful calls-to-action.

Respect and show how much you value your subscribers by empowering them to control frequency and enhance relevancy and you can expect results you’ll be pleased with.