6 ways to avoid marketing email overkill
- Jackie Connor
- Jan 24
- 3 min read
Our expert weighs in on strategies to keep your customers engaged while not burning them out.
A solid content marketing strategy involves emails—a necessary cornerstone whose global revenue is projected to surpass $17 billion by 2027. Despite the billions of emails people across the globe receive per year, at least a few always manage to keep your attention.
With technology increasing our abilities to deliver the best service to customers (read: artificial intelligence), it’s tempting to share every single update with them. But finding the balance is key and knowing your audience is your starting point.
“Email is a cornerstone of our marketing plans,” said Cecilia Perry, Ingram Micro digital marketing manager. “I think an omnichannel approach is always the best approach because you’re getting in front of a [customer] on all fronts—social platforms, emails, banner ads. It takes seven to eight touchpoints before someone actually does something with what they’re seeing.”
Our expert shares six tips that can help you start on the right path to connecting with your customers instead of bugging them.
1. Focus on quality, not quantity
Rather than sending emails to simply check a content box, focus on delivering quality content. Think about your audience’s needs. It’s tempting to think that more messages must mean better results, but studies show people are more likely to unsubscribe after receiving too many messages.
2. Narrow down your audience
Gone are the days of blindly sending mass emails to huge, untargeted lists, says Perry. Instead, she recommends focusing on your audience based on factors like past behavior or interests from click-and-open rates. Use segmentation to break down your audience into groups like purchases, engagement or relevancy.
“We have been looking at audience size [a lot more] and are moving away from the ‘spray and pray,’” said Perry. “You want to focus on narrowing down and segmenting your audience—setting caps on how large an [email] list can be has really helped.”
3. Get personal
Personalization, says Perry, is one of the best ways to avoid overwhelming your recipients. If someone engages with your content by clicking through, follow up with more in-depth content. For those who don’t engage with your content, consider tweaking your email subject lines or preview texts and sending the message again.
4. Send drip campaigns for singular messages
Drip campaigns are a series of automated emails aimed at getting people to take a specific action and are perfect when you have one singular message to send, says Perry.
5. Send nurture campaigns to move people down the marketing funnel
On the other hand, if you have multiple pieces of content to share with different calls to action, a nurture campaign, or a series of emails aimed at establishing a relationship with your audience, is ideal. Perry recommends thinking of these from a marketing funnel perspective: start with awareness-type messaging and as the audiences engage with the emails, send more in-depth content.
6. Set (email) frequency limits
Though there is no one-size-fits-all approach, setting the frequency of your emails is a critical part of avoiding email burnout. These numbers can vary depending on audience engagement, says Perry. The key is to test the waters before diving in and set caps on how many emails you send to each audience segment.
At the end of the day, it’s all about respecting your customer’s inbox and delivering content that adds value. Embracing a more strategic approach to your email marketing can result in higher open rates and a more engaged audience. Next time you want to drop a line to your customers, think: less is more.
Let Ingram Micro help you start the digital conversation.
Jackie Connor is a writer with more than 15 years of experience contributing to news publications and marketing teams. Since joining Ingram Micro in 2022, she covers technology services, ITAD, marketing, financial solutions, sustainability and DEI.
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