Fighting the Tyranny of E-Mail
| Category: E-mail Marketing | Date: 2002-07-15 |
We all do it. Right after we get to work, maybe before we get to work, in the hotel when we arrive, just before we go to bed. We are driven to the computer to get to our email. In this era of instant communication, turning off or not being available for a moment is not permitted.
Many times my staff has called me while Im out of town and riding in a cab just to ask me if Ive read my email about the newest "big issue". Ten years ago, the "issue" would have waited until I got a fax. Now, its gotten so intense with clients and associates asking if Ive gotten my email purchased the Palm VII. Great machine. But it does add to the frenzy of each day.
Email is the killer Internet app, for now. Almost everyone uses it. The Industry Standard has combined reports on the impact of email worldwide into a comprehensive picture, and notes that at the end of 1999, there were 570 million email boxes worldwide. The United States market includes 334 million boxes - more than one per person - according to Messaging Online. In the Standards report, Jupiter Communications predicts that by 2003, 432 billion email messages will be sent per year, up from 132 billion in 1999. Other estimates go even higher.
The Standards report quotes the Pew Internet Project, which found that the content of messages is both personal and business-related. Fifty-six percent of adults say email has improved their connection with their family and 66 percent say it has kept them in contact with friends (with women responding positively in greater frequency than men to these statements). The Pew study also notes that email marketing is expected to expand to the point that by 2005 there will be one commercial email for every two or three personal messages. Marketers can rejoice that during the study 63 percent of Internet users stated they do not feel that unsolicited commercial email is a problem.
Syndicated services like hotmail and GoZing.com offer free email, and many wireless appliances offer services free, if the recipient agrees to receive merchandise offers or company-directed email.
So how did we come so far, so fast? We all like to get email for pleasure. But I am convinced that the reason we have to be "on" all the time is because we think the boss is expecting instant results. Hence, the tyranny of email. We feel compelled to respond right away as if someone really needed an answer that fast. So what if everyone decided to wait just a little longer? Maybe we wouldnt feel so frazzled at the end of the day. Maybe, we would all make more sense because we thought through the process a just little longer.
Here are eight tips to help reduce the stress and overthrow the tyranny of email.
1. Manage your inbox. Nothing is more stressful than opening your email and seeing hundreds of emails in your inbox - read or not. Try to delete or file an email as soon as you have read it.
2. Create folders for specific subjects and use the keyword identification (in Outlook), so that the emails with the specific words will go directly into the specified folder, rather than into your general inbox.
3. Set up another email address to use for personal emails (like all those silly chain letters and jokes and department store sales announcements).
4. Utilize other forms of communications within your company. Try using internal message boards for a particular project. This cuts way down on the copies you receive. The project -information is posted to the message board and remains there for everyone to access and respond to. We used this for one of our accounts and it effectively controlled the madness.
5. Set your browser to filter out all broadcast junk mail or intrusive mail. This works pretty well, but it can dump important messages, too.
6. Turn off any sounds or pop-ups that alert you to new emails. This makes it less compelling to drop everything and read and respond each time you get new mail.
7. Control the receipt of emails by setting the time up to 5 or 10 minutes on the "send" option.
8. Set your browser to return all weekend email notifications to the senders, so people dont expect an immediate reply to their emails on the weekends.
Now that we know how to free ourselves from email tyranny, as marketers what should we do to insure that our outgoing email messages and electronic marketing campaigns are welcomed into recipients inboxes with smiles and not deleted as spam. In our new world of around-the-clock or 24/7 direct marketing, time of the week, hour of the day and location are regularly targeted for maximum effectiveness.
Heres 10 tips to make outgoing email a lot more friendly and effective.
1. Dont send email to people who are havent requested it. Dont copy others on info that is meant only for the person who is counting on information.
2. The best time to reach business people with email is lunch time. Remember to time your deliveries to take into consideration differing time zones.
3. Dont send a business email late on a Friday or one that arrives on a Monday morning. A persons mailbox is usually full from a weekend of receiving such messages and, therefore, your email may be deleted instead of read.
4. The same logic applies to sending emails right before a long holiday weekend.
5. Friday is getaway day, too. Another reason to go light on Friday emails, and send nothing on Friday afternoons.
6. Consumer email is best read on weekends, especially Sundays. This is when a person has the most time to read it. Email does tend to take over personal time.
7. This is a big one: We cannot do merge/purge, yet. Not because of technology, but rather due to a growing-pains thing with the newbie email companies. So the question is, how do you avoid sending duplicate messages to the same name? The answer is timing: Space out the drops between each list by a day or two. This will avoid everyone looking silly or sending spam.
8. Nothing wastes time and patience as much as having to scroll through pages of addresses to get to the meat of the email message. When you are sending an email to the department mail list or (especially!) to the company-wide mail list, send the email to yourself (using To:) and put the mailing list nickname on the bcc: line.
9. Always put a meaningful title on the subject line.
10. Keep the email subject short. Make it meaningful. And dont send anything that might be confused for spam. If you send the boss an email with the subject "Heres a Deal for You!" his email filter or he himself may delete it unread.
One more thing: Dont reply to an email when you are angry about its contents. Cool off first. If you must attack the keyboard while youre in the mood, store the message in the draft folder for a while before you send it. Youll be glad you did.
Frequency of Emails
Heres the inside scoop on the best times of year to send direct marketing emails:
Frequency is one of the few elements of direct marketing that hasnt changed. People still want to receive the right offer at the same time. Today, the problem is in the planning and delivery of the email messages. Theres less turn-around time, more demand and yet fewer services (legitimate ones) to send the messages. There are fewer lists of the true, ethical opt-in type and less expertise in how to correctly structure the offer and copy.
Email offers must be sent early in the correct season. Waiting too long to use a specific list can turn a legitimate offer into spam. Its not list fatigue, its consumer fatigue that will plague the tardy user of an email list even in the correct season.
About the Author
Robert McKim
DBMarkets@aol.com
http://www.msdbm.com
Many times my staff has called me while Im out of town and riding in a cab just to ask me if Ive read my email about the newest "big issue". Ten years ago, the "issue" would have waited until I got a fax. Now, its gotten so intense with clients and associates asking if Ive gotten my email purchased the Palm VII. Great machine. But it does add to the frenzy of each day.
Email is the killer Internet app, for now. Almost everyone uses it. The Industry Standard has combined reports on the impact of email worldwide into a comprehensive picture, and notes that at the end of 1999, there were 570 million email boxes worldwide. The United States market includes 334 million boxes - more than one per person - according to Messaging Online. In the Standards report, Jupiter Communications predicts that by 2003, 432 billion email messages will be sent per year, up from 132 billion in 1999. Other estimates go even higher.
The Standards report quotes the Pew Internet Project, which found that the content of messages is both personal and business-related. Fifty-six percent of adults say email has improved their connection with their family and 66 percent say it has kept them in contact with friends (with women responding positively in greater frequency than men to these statements). The Pew study also notes that email marketing is expected to expand to the point that by 2005 there will be one commercial email for every two or three personal messages. Marketers can rejoice that during the study 63 percent of Internet users stated they do not feel that unsolicited commercial email is a problem.
Syndicated services like hotmail and GoZing.com offer free email, and many wireless appliances offer services free, if the recipient agrees to receive merchandise offers or company-directed email.
So how did we come so far, so fast? We all like to get email for pleasure. But I am convinced that the reason we have to be "on" all the time is because we think the boss is expecting instant results. Hence, the tyranny of email. We feel compelled to respond right away as if someone really needed an answer that fast. So what if everyone decided to wait just a little longer? Maybe we wouldnt feel so frazzled at the end of the day. Maybe, we would all make more sense because we thought through the process a just little longer.
Here are eight tips to help reduce the stress and overthrow the tyranny of email.
1. Manage your inbox. Nothing is more stressful than opening your email and seeing hundreds of emails in your inbox - read or not. Try to delete or file an email as soon as you have read it.
2. Create folders for specific subjects and use the keyword identification (in Outlook), so that the emails with the specific words will go directly into the specified folder, rather than into your general inbox.
3. Set up another email address to use for personal emails (like all those silly chain letters and jokes and department store sales announcements).
4. Utilize other forms of communications within your company. Try using internal message boards for a particular project. This cuts way down on the copies you receive. The project -information is posted to the message board and remains there for everyone to access and respond to. We used this for one of our accounts and it effectively controlled the madness.
5. Set your browser to filter out all broadcast junk mail or intrusive mail. This works pretty well, but it can dump important messages, too.
6. Turn off any sounds or pop-ups that alert you to new emails. This makes it less compelling to drop everything and read and respond each time you get new mail.
7. Control the receipt of emails by setting the time up to 5 or 10 minutes on the "send" option.
8. Set your browser to return all weekend email notifications to the senders, so people dont expect an immediate reply to their emails on the weekends.
Now that we know how to free ourselves from email tyranny, as marketers what should we do to insure that our outgoing email messages and electronic marketing campaigns are welcomed into recipients inboxes with smiles and not deleted as spam. In our new world of around-the-clock or 24/7 direct marketing, time of the week, hour of the day and location are regularly targeted for maximum effectiveness.
Heres 10 tips to make outgoing email a lot more friendly and effective.
1. Dont send email to people who are havent requested it. Dont copy others on info that is meant only for the person who is counting on information.
2. The best time to reach business people with email is lunch time. Remember to time your deliveries to take into consideration differing time zones.
3. Dont send a business email late on a Friday or one that arrives on a Monday morning. A persons mailbox is usually full from a weekend of receiving such messages and, therefore, your email may be deleted instead of read.
4. The same logic applies to sending emails right before a long holiday weekend.
5. Friday is getaway day, too. Another reason to go light on Friday emails, and send nothing on Friday afternoons.
6. Consumer email is best read on weekends, especially Sundays. This is when a person has the most time to read it. Email does tend to take over personal time.
7. This is a big one: We cannot do merge/purge, yet. Not because of technology, but rather due to a growing-pains thing with the newbie email companies. So the question is, how do you avoid sending duplicate messages to the same name? The answer is timing: Space out the drops between each list by a day or two. This will avoid everyone looking silly or sending spam.
8. Nothing wastes time and patience as much as having to scroll through pages of addresses to get to the meat of the email message. When you are sending an email to the department mail list or (especially!) to the company-wide mail list, send the email to yourself (using To:) and put the mailing list nickname on the bcc: line.
9. Always put a meaningful title on the subject line.
10. Keep the email subject short. Make it meaningful. And dont send anything that might be confused for spam. If you send the boss an email with the subject "Heres a Deal for You!" his email filter or he himself may delete it unread.
One more thing: Dont reply to an email when you are angry about its contents. Cool off first. If you must attack the keyboard while youre in the mood, store the message in the draft folder for a while before you send it. Youll be glad you did.
Frequency of Emails
Heres the inside scoop on the best times of year to send direct marketing emails:
Frequency is one of the few elements of direct marketing that hasnt changed. People still want to receive the right offer at the same time. Today, the problem is in the planning and delivery of the email messages. Theres less turn-around time, more demand and yet fewer services (legitimate ones) to send the messages. There are fewer lists of the true, ethical opt-in type and less expertise in how to correctly structure the offer and copy.
Email offers must be sent early in the correct season. Waiting too long to use a specific list can turn a legitimate offer into spam. Its not list fatigue, its consumer fatigue that will plague the tardy user of an email list even in the correct season.
About the Author
Robert McKim
DBMarkets@aol.com
http://www.msdbm.com
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