The Messaging Times

There are always conversations (1, 2) around the email marketing water cooler about email frequency. Very interesting stuff. Sometimes, I give marketers a hard time for over-analyzing things. Other times, I find myself looking for metrics and being very glad that one of them took the time to measure whatever it is that I was looking for.

Until recently, email marketers sent their messages on weekly or monthly delivery schedules – in line with traditional broadsheet publication cycles. A few years ago, companies like Amazon started showing us how email could be used effectively when messages are sent in response to customer actions and behaviors rather than on a predetermined publication schedule. Buy a book, get an email with a recommendation for another. Visit a product page, get a promotional email for that product. Behavior-triggered email is used more and more today in an attempt to make emails more timely and relevant to the recipient. This strategy is helping to change the frequency paradigm for many email marketers – particularly larger email marketers with the resources available to implement and manage robust behavioral campaigns.

Today, some email marketers are even using psychographic overlays and heat-mapping to optimize their strategy. Some of us might think that this is going a bit too far. Welcome to the new world of marketing.

Flylady.com turned email upside down as early as 1999 by serving up home organization tips and reminders to recipients in the volume of 500+ each month. My wife subscribed for a while, until the volume became too burdensome for both our inbox and her commitment threshold and she eventually unsubscribed. She still knows people who look forward to receiving messages from flylady every few minutes of the day.

The emergence of websites like Twitter and Jaiku have prompted discussions and debates around the Internet about our desire (or lack thereof) for a continuous connection (frequency) to the conversations taking place in those online communities which interest us (relevance). It seems that more and more people feel the need to be continuously connected to multiple streams of communication: SMS, blogs, RSS readers, twitter/jaiku, etc.

So what about email as a continuous conversation platform? I suppose that it already is for the personal communication that we enjoy with family and friends. Whether people want to be in touch so regularly with a commercial emailer depends, I guess, on the value of each message that is sent. A joke of the day, puzzle of the day or tip of the day have all been used successfully in the past to keep recipients engaged with publishers on a daily basis. I think that it really comes down to common sense. Take a look at your own email offers – whether they be newsletters, promotions or updates. How often would you like to receive them if you were on your own recipient list? More often than not, content determines frequency.