Are you doing too much web marketing?

In the first 9 days of February (6 days excluding weekends) I received 5 emails from Sainsbury's:-

• 3 from the 'Wine by the case' team
• 1 from the 'Flowers' team
• 1 from the 'Online team'

In January, I had at least 5 emails just from the 'Wine by the case' team, in addition to any I might have deleted. 

As you would expect from someone who spends much of their time helping businesses to increase customer lifetime value, I am an advocate of email marketing to customers providing the business makes relevant, timely offers that are likely to be of interest to the customer.

Yes I am interested in Sainsburys emails highlighting wine sales and ideas for Valentines Day. However, the frequency is too high and if I get another one tomorrow I will probably unsubscribe. 

How much is too much?

Well it depends. I am happy to receive several short emails every day from some companies e.g. web marketing news. Other emails have a much longer frequency e.g. those from a car manufacturer tend to be monthly or even quarterly. If I was a fleet car buyer, I would probably want them more frequently.

The ideal frequency for a specific email campaign will depend on email length, newsworthiness, quality of content, the customers interest in the product or service. It should be frequent enough to be helpful and to build or maintain a relationship but not too frequent to irritate.

Taker a look at the metrics. Try different intervals and observe the open rates, clicks and unsubscribes. For e-commerce sites, monitor the effect on sales and customer lifetime value.

Alternatively, ask your customers what frequency they would prefer or give them  a choice.

Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?

I don't know how many email teams there are at Sainsburys, but the 'from addresses' imply at least 3. You would expect the various teams to talk to each other and develop rules in terms of the maximum number of customer contacts in a given period. 

Inevitably, if every department in a large corporate was given a free hand to contact the customer as they liked, the poor customer would be bombarded. This was true when each customer contact by post cost £1, so given the marginal cost of email is near zero, there is likely to be an even greater push to communicate more frequently by email. To avoid irritating customers, it is essential that a sound customer contact strategy is implemented. 

4 years ago, I went to Sainsbury to suggest they implement a strategy to contact customers by email but  they said it wasn't for them. I have no idea whether Sainsburys have a customer contact strategy for email or not but my experience suggests it needs improving.

What is your view re how much is too much? Click on the comments link below.

Web marketing tips that any business (large or small) could apply to attract and retain new customers

• If you email your customers, set up a strategy to decide which customers should get the email and how often

• Set the frequency based on content quality, length, newsworthiness & perceived customer interest

• If more than 1 person or department is involved, set up rules on the maximum number of contacts to the customer per period and how selections are made when too many people are competing for the same slot

• Put a programme in place to measure email / sales performance against key business metrics? Read more about web metrics.

• Revise the programme & rules based on performance

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing consultant with UK web marketing agency Brand New Way which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.