Email marketing is a persistent subject of curiosity for me; I’m always observing how companies use email as a communications medium with their customers/supporters. It’s the oldest form of electronic communication still in use, but it ubiquitous and effective.
Back in September 2019, I signed up to support Andrew Yang’s Presidential campaign because I like his vision for the USA, in particular universal basic income (even though I can’t vote here yet). I was surprised by the amount of email they sent in the first three days: seven messages. I’d never experienced such intense email saturation before. Usually reaching out even once a day would be considered borderline email harassment. 😆 The first week? 13 emails. 😲 I decided to keep every email he’d ever sent just out of sheer marketing curiosity.
How many emails did the campaign send in total? 334 over a period of 154 days. That’s 2.2 emails per day, every day, for almost half a year! I have no idea if this is typical or not for a campaign, but if I wasn’t someone who had donated to the campaign and hoped he’d make it all the way, I would have unsubscribed in the first week. I’m deeply curious about what the campaign’s weekly unsubscribe rates were. 🤔
Email can be a powerful tool to communicate with people who care about what you’re selling/saying, but if you overdo it you can alienate the very people you’re trying to build support with.