Posted by Gareth Cutter on 16th March 2009 to
Best Practice Merkle’s recent View from the Inbox 2009 study has revealed that 59% spend at least 20 minutes every week with permission-based email marketing. But how many emails have to compete for subscribers’ attention within those 20 minutes?
The answer may be as many as ten now, according to information from the same study. This represents a marginal increase, as the number of emails allowed within the ‘Inner Circle’ has held steady at 9 for the past six years.
This threshold is unlikely to go up again any time soon - but we expect the volume of emails vying for a place in those ‘top ten’ to increase sharply as the cost and ROI-benefits of email marketing become more apparent during the recession. This means grabbing and holding consumers’ attention with engaging emails is going to become even more of a top priority for email marketers.
The secret to subscriber engagement is content, so ask yourself: how content-rich are your email marketing campaigns? We’ve written about the Pareto principle in the past (an 80:20 ratio of informative content to promotional materials) but think it is worth bringing to marketers’ attention again because it embodies the kind of approach consumers appreciate.
Observing the Pareto principle doesn’t mean you have to be writing essay-length emails – far from it, subscribers don’t have time to pick through dense copy - instead, you should be linking to interesting content on your site: informative articles, blog posts, questionnaires, photo galleries, anything that you think will be of interest to subscribers.
Doing this will allow them to pick and choose what to read at their own discretion. Provided that the content is of high-quality and relevance, this will increase subscriber engagement and drive more traffic to your website where visitors will be primed to make a purchase, should you keep them engaged.
