The Importance of Being (Not too) Earnest

This may come as a bit of a surprise but I only check my personal emails once a week. 

Yes, in this crazy, joined up, interconnected world we live in, it is actually still possible to resist the urge to ignore incoming communications - for a considerable period of time. I also only open my snail mail post once or twice a week too (although there's much, much less of that). 

This gives me a fairly interesting perspective on the marketing tactics of some companies. In one batch of weekly emails I can have as many as five promotional emails from a some organisations, with varying deals and offers, each one better than the last. I don't open them all. In fact the more there are, the less I open. 

In the snail mail pile, it's the same. One persistent offender is a leading online butcher and it would not be unusual for me to have 2 separate pieces of direct mail plus several emails from this organisation over the course of an average week. 

There's only so many times a girl can buy steak.....

Now I'm the first to appreciate that frequency of contact in marketing is an essential ingredient for success, but there is such a thing a too much frequency. Too much contact. Too much invasion into the "top of my mind". 

In fact it feels as if some of these companies communicate with me more often than my family. That they believe they should be party to my daily life. 

Are they desperate for sales? The quality of their marketing would suggest not. But their communication patterns suggest otherwise. 

So far I've held back from cutting them off completely by justifying to myself the convenience of having yummy steak delivered straight to my door, and the possibility that unsubscribing may send them into an even blinder panic of over-marketing to get me back. Like the gym, who now communicate with me more often now that I am no longer a member, than they did when I was. 

Interestingly we recently took the less is more approach and recommended to one of our clients that they do a little bit less on social, and a little bit less frequent email marketing and, guess what, their online sales have gone up, conversion rates are growing and attrition is falling. Result!

Perhaps we're just too busy to absorb it all. Of course it's great to develop relationships with your customers, but please try to remember they are customers, not your best mate or your spouse. 

There's an importance in not being too earnest....... don't you think?