Comments on: Marketer’s dilemma: How many email messages are too many?

By: The Hard Part — Art Biz Blog

The Hard Part — Art Biz Blog — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:00:43 +0000

[...] an extra email to my list to promote an upcoming class or a new product. I know it has to be done because people [...]

By: Fiona Purdy

Fiona Purdy — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:23:39 +0000

Mary – Alyson runs a business and uses her blog and email as part of her marketing. I think that getting a few (very few in my opinion) emails advertising classes she is offering is a fair trade off for all of the wonderful information and help she gives to artists everyday FOR FREE! I am so grateful for all of the wonderful information I have received from you Alyson, you have no idea!

Alyson is also very careful to state what the email is about in the subject line. She makes it very easy for anyone to hit the delete key without having to open the email if it’s something they aren’t interested in. How simple, easy and it takes less than a blink of an eye to do.

I love all of your emails Alyson – please do not stop sending all of them!

By: Laura Tyler

Laura Tyler — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:46:17 +0000

Curious… How did you limit you mailing to Midwest artists? Did you sort email addresses manually using snail mail addresses as a reference?

Great post, by the way. There’s something strangely… encouraging about knowing you’ve suffered from Don’t Wanna Bother Syndrome too. I’ve collected email & snail mail addresses for YEARS without using them. And people have the nerve to get annoyed with me for not telling them about events?

Crazy, I know.

By: Mary Richmond

Mary Richmond — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:40:20 +0000

i am one of the people who unsubscribed from your list about 6 months ago because i was receiving too many emails about things i wasn’t interested in. i signed up for the newsletter, not information about events taking place across the country from me or reminders about classes that i was already aware of. i love your blog, your newsletter and all the information you share but like many others i get overwhelmed with emails about things i am not at all interested in. i check in with your blog several times a week so i don’t miss anything but am sorry to no longer have the newsletter in my email box on mondays. maybe you would consider a newsletter only email option?

i recently signed on to another newsletter email list and the woman has sent me 14 emails in less than a week. i unsubscribed this morning even though her newsletter is wonderful. it was too much.

i totally understand that there are some people who would miss things if you didn’t let them know but maybe your emails could be more targeted to an area, etc. if you are promoting a specific event.

This isn’t a criticism, just a thought

By: Alyson B. Stanfield

Alyson B. Stanfield — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:06:43 +0000

Fiona: Thank you for the vote of confidence!

Clint: Cool. I never heard that statistic. I guess I’m doing okay then. And, hey, I may need to pull this out and make it a separate post so that others can read it.

By: Clint Watson

Clint Watson — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:52:55 +0000

Several industry sources I’ve read, and my personal rule of thumb is .2% – if more than .2% of your list is unsubscribing, then you’re sending too much mail and/or the content needs to be improved (and I know you’re content doesn’t need to be improved!).

So if more than 2 out of 1000 messages are unsubscribing, slow it down a bit.

By: Fiona Purdy

Fiona Purdy — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:26:40 +0000

If the people on your mailing list have given you permission to be included on it, then they have told you they WANT to hear from you.
I look at it this way, you send emails to inform them and you want an email to be in their inbox whenever they want to or feel like reading it, which means you must send out emails on a regular basis! It is your job to send the emails and their job to read it -whenever they want to!

Keep on emailing!