Some background:  Last month, I took 3 vacation days. Honestly, I thought I would actually work.  Once there, decided to actually take time off, so all I did was keep up with email. Mostly deletions and unsubscribes. Mainly to prevent coming back to a real email crisis – a small junk email mountain.

End the Junk Marketing Email Crisis Now

Fast forward a few weeks.  While enjoying a typical morning, starting each day with coffee and email unsubscribes, I finally did what no marketer ever should do – fired up an app to unsubscribe.

5 days later and 102 newly unsubscribed organizations later –  I no longer dread my inbox.

So, how did it come to this?

And the other question is:  Am I the only one?

Before proceeding with this rant, first some research:

• 50% say that too much email is the most annoying thing when receiving an email offer from a marketer (Adobe)
• 61% of consumers prefer email for marketing (Adobe)
• 89% marketers say email is the primary channel for lead generation. (Mailgen)

So I’m not alone. Others face the email crisis daily.

And no question, email is here to stay.  Thus, time to figure out how marketers are part of the solution and not the problem.

How, then, can my demand gen and marketing ops colleagues improve?

Five Ways Marketers Should Improve Email

Here are five tips, my heartfelt advice, to my fellow marketers to improve outbound email:

1. Don’t assume I just want your email.

Let me know what to expect and ask me nicely to opt-in to your valuable marketing programs.

2. Clean your email list…regularly… with rules.

If I don’t open your email after 3 or 4, chances are really good I’m not interested.

3. Segment your list and personalize your email.

Just adding my name doesn’t count. Improve your personas.  How about sending me information that interests me?  Better yet, why not use some sort of machine learning predictive email solution that discovers and shows the most relevant content. Maybe the best time of day to send it to me, too.

4. Never send 3 emails a day.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.  Nothing gets me to opt-out faster. Even if I like you. You wouldn’t want a sales guy calling you 3 times a day, would you?

5. Always give me a reason to not opt-out.

Make your emails worthwhile, short, and infrequent.  And please, above all, make sure you don’t become just another bad marketing email.

And this one applies to everyone: Please. Just because we met somewhere doesn’t mean you should add me to your email marketing. Seriously. This is probably my biggest email crisis pet peeve. It wastes your time and mine.

How about yours?  What’s your advice to email marketers?

Friends don’t let friends send spam. Share and share generously, this Don’t Do list.

Editor’s Note:  Links updated from most recent Adobe Email Survey 2017