I'm back from a fabulous vacation in Portland, Oregon - what a trip. I ate more biscuits and gravy in one week than I have in my lifetime (Pine State Biscuits will have that effect on a girl), explored wine country (Pinot Noir is what Willamette is known for, and I love it, but OMG the Rieslings!), and found the most miraculous milliner (my head is too freakishly big to fit into real vintage cloches, but this lady makes'em like it's 1925). It was a good trip. But like all good trips, it came to an end, and I returned to an overflowing email inbox.But, it wasn't that bad, really. I spent two weeks in January unsubscribing from every single marketing email, which shrank my daily inbox count from 200 emails to 20. Only important communications from real people who I genuinely want to hear from come through (with the exception of a single newsletter, CopyHackers, because it's that good).See, this is why I contend that marketing emails, as they are typically done, don't work.They're time sucks. We begin to resent them. We stop reading them. We unsubscribe - or worse - mark as SPAM.But today, I read a post that reminded me that I need to start reading what my target audience is reading. So I signed up with 3 websites, which shall, for the moment, remain nameless.Because, one of them is already pissing me off. We'll call it Marketing Site #1.

email marketing fail

All three websites sent a subscription confirmation email. That's fine. That's expected. I'm pretty sure that's even required by MailChimp. They were lovely messages. I enjoyed reading them, even the one that was really kinda long. I confirmed. I closed. I went back to work.Then I saw another message pop up in my inbox from Marketing Site #1. It was another really kinda long message, and buried within the verbiage was a request to reply to the email so they knew it had landed in my inbox and not in my spam folder. Now... I've already subscribed at this point. So that first email clearly landed as intended. But shooting me this additional email makes me think that I am going to be BUGGED TO DEATH with non-stop communications from this website.And that's why I cleared out my subscription list in the first place.Marketing Site #1 is on thin ice, which sucks, because I was planning on pitching them a guest post in the near future.I responded with: "If multiple emails are habitual, please let me know so I can unsubscribe. LIFE IS TOO SHORT."That's my theory. Whenever you send an email, remember that you are sucking minutes of life from each person who reads it.If you aren't delivering value, joy, good humor and good vibes with each of those emails, you're doing a disservice. And, if you email too often - even if those emails are full of joy and value - you will train people to ignore you.Training people to ignore you is the opposite of what you want.

a better way

One of my clients, Anna Kunnecke, nails email marketing. Actually, she's the other newsletter I've recently subscribed to, because she only sends out a missive once a week and reading it always - ALWAYS! - makes me feel great. Half the time I forward her newsletters to friends because they're pertinent, interesting, or just great examples of what email marketing can be. Sometimes Anna sends out a flurry of communications when she's promoting something specific, but that only happens a handful of times a year (and by that time, she's trained me to open every single thing she sends).The woman is delightfully diabolical.In short, email marketing that works isn't just about quality - it's about quantity and frequency. Most people have been hammered by weekly, daily, or non-stop emails from brands for years, and they've learned by necessity to tune them out. It's too much noise. Collectively, it's asking too much of their time.An old drama teacher taught me this trick.Do you know how to get the attention of a room full of unruly five-year-olds without saying a word?You walk to the front of the room and kneel down on the floor. Then, you focus on a single point on the floor. You look at that point like it contains the most fascinating speck of dust on the planet. Maybe there's even a planet contained in that speck of dust.And as you focus...The children will quiet down and look at you. Probably thinking the 5-year old version of "WTF?"And you've got their undivided attention within two minutes.Sometimes, being quiet gains more attention than being the loudest, because it's unexpected. And then, when you have their attention, make your next words count.

Silver Falls State Park, Oregon, photo taken by my husband