The Email Wars

This is not a trick question… or is it? In a speech I heard the other week I took the idea of an “inbox” into a new light. Typically we would only think about our inbox as a work email or personal email box, but what about all of the other places you get messages? Have you ever taken a moment to do a little self audit. Consider these locations.

Your work inbox

Your personal inbox(es)

Your Facebook account, Twitter, MySpace, any other social media site.

Your mobile phone – this could be 1 to 10+ if you consider VM, TEXT, and any email accounts you check on this device.

Your work Voice mail

Your home voice mail

Your home gaming system – xbox, ps, wii – they all have them

I was actually a little floored when I thought about all of the places that I get messages from people that I check. I have 15 places. Really 15? It makes me a little sick actually. Sure I might be atypical but I would wager that a majority of America has 4-5 places that could be termed as inboxes in the sense of the word.

But as a marketer do I need to know and have access to all of these? Nope, you just need access to the right ones where people have asked to hear from you at.

As a consumer do I want you to have access to all of these?  Not unless I have specifically given you permission to or asked you in to these locations.

What this made me consider is the overall noise factor in our lives when it comes to messaging. It is a LOUD place out there and we all process this noise (aka marketing) differently. It drives home the point that if you are not targeting your messages you are fighting against more forces than you can fathom. How much can you really hit to be effective and not perceived as a spammer? Remember it is perception not opt in relationship that drives the perception that those have of you as a bad email marketer.

And could you really do a good job and keep your messaging different enough to really impact the messages across all of these locations? I challenge someone to share with me someone that is doing a great job in the eyes of the subscriber if they are targeting across more than 3 of these locations.