I got 6 marketing emails from a single company today.

Yes, 6. All to my professional email address.

The worst part is I am not in their ideal target audience. They sell to HR professionals. Which tells me they aren’t doing a very good job at targeting.

And like many professionals, I get dozens of marketing emails a day from vendors promoting their brand or services.

My default is to automatically ignore 99% of them. You probably do too.

And this is coming from a marketer. I can’t imagine what an accountant would think.

Sometimes I like to stop and analyze some of these emails, dissecting why they did or did not work on me.

Which got me thinking - why do we receive so many marketing emails that aren’t effective? Why do we receive so many in general?

First, a lot of this has to do with access to data. There is more data available than ever and more software vendors (like ZoomInfo & LinkedIn) where email addresses are purchasable.

But there’s a deeper cause - something I see every day in my role. Something I even mistakenly do myself.

It has to do with how you’re being targeted (or lack thereof).

See, marketers, like all people, will do exactly what they’re incentivized to do and what’s easiest.

Whether that’s to drive webinar registrations, traffic, or leads, they will take the path of least resistance to get there.

And the easiest way to success is through more volume. More emails, more sends, bigger lists, broader targeting, at a higher frequency.

It’s simple. If I email 100 people or 1,000 which will get me better results?

Without any other factors, obviously 1,000.

But while this is an obvious choice in the short term, over time it’s extremely detrimental. I’ll explain in a moment.

In marketing, you can either try to be more efficient (percentages) or drive more volume (raw output).

Efficiency increases output, but aiming for more volume is just much easier.

You can spray a larger group with the same message, knowing that increasing the list size will make up for it.

A/B test the subject line? Takes time an effort.

Analyze the content in detail before sending? I’ve got other things to do!

Iterate and test over and over again? Ya, sounds like a lot of work.

I’d rather just add more contacts to the send and yield the same or better results as if I had improved the email itself.

And in the short-term, who really cares if you drive a couple extra unsubscribes? As an individual contributor, it doesn't really hurt you.

But it hurts the business massively.

Your customers hate it. Your contactable emails in your database plummet.Your domain authority and deliverability lessen.

And maybe worst of all, the power of your emails become worthless.

The scary part is, you won’t really know if your emails are becoming less effective until further down the road.

If you received 6 emails from one company in a single day, how closely do you think you’d pay attention to the 6th? Probably not at all.

So, how do you fix this?

This can be done at the individual contributor level, but without the right incentives and structure in place, it will be difficult to implement.

So, from the leadership level, you have to change incentives and hold people accountable to different metrics. This will stop the use of the “easy-button” where email segments become larger and larger over time.

1. Track email metrics closely in addition to the primary KPI

Not only is the end goal important (like webinar registrations), but thanks to email software, we can easily track how effective the emails are.

If the primary goal is to drive webinar registrations, that primary KPI must be looked at alongside the email metrics. It cannot be looked at in a vacuum.

Set benchmarks for email KPI’s. These are: total delivered, open rate, click to open rate, and click through rate. Then, look at these alongside your primary KPI.

For example, if you drove 500 registrations and 500 contacts unsubscribed, that is not to be considered a success.

But if you only drove 200 registrations and only 12 unsubscribes, there's a case to be made that it's a better outcome.

2. Create a standard of iteration and testing

It’s easy to just focus on getting the email out the door, lacking focus on ensuring the email itself is high quality.

To solve this, you must require a standard of consistently iterating and testing emails for each send type (newsletter vs webinar sends, for example).

A/B test as often as possible. Encourage quality content and copywriting all the way from the subject line, to the body, to the closing of the email. Bring in copywriters and make sure it’s attention grabbing, compelling, and speaks to the person who will receive it.

Then, constantly analyze all email sends, set benchmarks, and compare future email sends to these to get an idea of how they’re performing.

This standard is best set at the top, with teams and processes built out to support it.

3. Require strict segmentation rules

Create guidelines around what personas, departments, and job levels can receive which type of individual emails. Don’t allow all contacts to receive all emails.

In addition, ensure you have guardrails in place to minimize the frequency in which one individual can receive emails in a given timeframe.

For example, only managers and directors can receive promotional emails unless the account has shown signals of buying intent. In addition, VP’s and C-level cannot be emailed more than twice per month unless it’s critical information.

To go even further, create rules around the personas specifically, ensuring only certain personas receive certain types of emails, and stick to it.

Less is more, even as painful as that may be in the short term.

Summary

While an entirely separate blog can be written on technical aspects of improving your email marketing, the majority of the problem can be solved with top-down incentives and standard.

What’s measured gets tracked and what’s tracked gets improved. And if you measure the wrong things and exclude other important components, the ship can steer far off course and hurt you down the line.

With the right incentives, structures, and rules in place, you won’t find yourself racing to the bottom of the unsubscribe pit.

What are your thoughts? How would you improve this to ensure the most effective email marketing?