Most of the time, email marketing is used to sell a product, a free or paid service, or a cause. To better reach people, organizations use the analytics included in MailChimp and other similar services. They then adapt their campaigns in the following ways based on who opened each campaign and what links they clicked on:
- When people don’t open an email, a company may send them another email the next day with a more personalized and attention-grabbing subject: “Hey, Nancy, only 12 hours before Black Friday ends…”.
- The people who opened the latest invitation to a fundraising event but didn’t click on “Buy your tickets” may receive another email from the non-profit the next day – and the day after.
- To those people who haven’t used one of their free government-funded services, a community organization may send a weekly reminder to its members – until they do open the email or click on the link.
That’s normal, right? It seems to fit in our attention economy…
Attention economics
As Matthew B. Crawford wrote in a New York Times opinion piece titled The Cost of Paying Attention, “attention is a resource; a person has only so much of it.” In the article, he describes the experience of passing through an airport and being bombarded by ads—except, of course, in the quiet and luxurious business lounge—pointing out “silence is now offered as a luxury good”. He ends his piece with this statement:
I think we need to sharpen the conceptually murky right to privacy by supplementing it with a right not to be addressed. This would apply not, of course, to those who address me face to face as individuals, but to those who never show their faces, and treat my mind as a resource to be harvested.
Indeed, in advertising, attention economics treats a potential consumer’s attention as a resource.[3] So, the question most companies ask themselves is: How can we grab our audience’s attention and retain it?
But there comes a point when we should really be asking ourselves: Am I being respectful of my audience? Or am I harassing them? And wouldn’t being respectful of their attention be better for them and for business? Wouldn’t they appreciate us more as a brand if we did things differently and in a more humane way than others? I get it; you need to sell something. But I think it’s worth considering.
A great product or service doesn’t need (that much) advertising
Truth be told, if you need to send daily reminders to your audience to sell your product, service, cause, or event, it probably means there’s a problem with it. If people truly need your product or service, and if it solves an important problem for them, they will find it. And if your product, service, or event is really that great, word-of-mouth advertising will do the rest.
- I didn’t need a pop-up or contest to subscribe to my favourite newsletter. I eagerly looked for the subscribe form to get more tips, tricks, or news.
- I didn’t need an ad to discover Chu Chai, a Montreal vegan restaurant. A friend told me how great it was. I tried it and then told another friend about it.
- I didn’t need a paid ad to find the Hexlox bike security system. I researched the subject of bike security and found that Hexlox was offering what I needed.
Sure, you will need to remind people you exist once in a while —especially if you work for a social or health-related cause —but daily or weekly email campaigns aiming to sell something shouldn’t be necessary. Do those harassing emails work? At times, yes. Banana Republic used to send me daily emails announcing their latest garments or sale. Result? Sometimes I did buy something I didn’t really need. But is that how you want to make your revenue? By emailing people every day and encouraging them to buy things they don’t need with money they may not really have? I quickly got tired of those emails, and I don’t shop at Banana Republic anymore. At all.
An example of a humane email campaign
The other day, I got something different in my inbox. It was an email titled “Time to say goodbye?” from Hexlox. It went like this:
Hi,
Marcus – CEO @Hexlox here.
I get it, sometimes you sign up for newsletters and emails that you in the end don’t want to read – I do it myself sometimes.
We noticed that you have not opened, or otherwise engaged with the emails we send you, so I wanted to ask you if we should stop sending these mails?
If you do not want to receive any mail in the future, click the button below…
If you still want us to send emails, you do not have to do anything!
Have a great day
Marcus
I was surprised by this approach. In addition to cleaning up their mailing list—who wants to spend precious resources talking to people who aren’t interested?—Hexlox is showing that they wish to respect their audience’s time and digital well-being (inbox overload).
At least on the surface. Because let’s be clear: Their email subject was attention-grabbing. “Are they closing?” I thought. Nope, they’re not. Their respectful approach could be an attempt at reverse psychology. After all, they didn’t go as far as requiring me to reconfirm that I wanted to stay on the mailing list. And receiving this email did make me like them more and think maybe I should stick with their newsletter a bit longer. But still, they made me pause, promoted critical thought regarding my newsletter-subscribing habits, and encouraged me to make a more intentional choice. This, in humane design or tech, relates to empowering design. And most companies wouldn’t risk it.
Would you?
For the record, I did unsubscribe. I still use their products, and I know where they are if I need them. And hopefully that’s why they did this. They trust their brand and the value of their products, so they don’t need advertising at all costs. And now they just got a free ad, thanks to this blog post.
