I was on vacation for a couple of weeks, and during that time, I didn’t hear from one of my friends at all. She didn’t want to know if I’d arrived safely, what I was doing, or anything else. On the other hand, another acquaintance texted me several times, wanting to know how my flight was, what I was doing, was I having any fun, and so forth. And yet another friend sent me just two messages, both because she saw something that related to me and wanted to let me know.
In other words, I got too little from one friend, too much from another, and just the right amount from the third. I felt like I finally understood how Goldilocks felt when she broke in to the bears’ house.
The Goldilocks Approach to Email Marketing Defined
All email marketers should apply a Goldilocks test to their email marketing, and figure out what make the “just right” email campaign. The Goldilocks test involves awareness of three issues: timing, quantity and content relevance. To be like Goldilocks, ask yourself whether you email marketing is too cold, too hot, or just right.
Too cold!
When the porridge goes cold, you don’t want to eat it.
You email marketing is too cold when you don’t send any/enough email to your contact list, or you send irrelevant email that gets ignored/deleted. In this case, you risk being forgotten, or you are making your contacts think you are not in business any more, or worse, that you don’t offer anything that is of value to them.
Too hot!
On the other hand, if the porridge is too hot, you can’t eat it because don’t want to touch it and risk being burned.
Your email marketing is too hot when you send too much email. You are overwhelming your contacts and risk alienating them. If you send too much email, your contacts don’t know what is valuable. Also, too much email is annoying. Statistics back this up. More than a quarter of people who unsubscribe from email lists do so because they say they get too many emails. Read more here.
Just right!
When the porridge is at the ideal temperature, you can eat and even enjoy it.
The “just right” email campaign is when you send timely email that is valuable to your contacts. If you send well-timed, relevant email, you are doing your list a service. Your contacts will benefit from your email. A well thought out email campaign will have a better open rate, less churn, and may result in action on the part of your contacts (a sale, donation, download, etc.).
What makes an email marketing campaign just right for you? Please let me know in the comments.
About Deborah Brody
Deborah Brody writes and edits anything related to marketing communications. Most blog posts are written under the influence of caffeine.
