Did You Get My eMail?

5 ways to tame the inbox beast. It’s not about too much email; it’s about too little decision-making authority 

How many times has an important client or colleague called you to ask if you’ve received their email? They’re not really asking about the status of your server or IP, of course. What they’re asking is, “Why haven’t you responded?”  That’s like sending a follow up postcard to someone you’ve just express mailed with a note like this: “Hey, did you get my Fedex?”

For the past several years, we’ve helped our clients in the trade association profession conduct a comprehensive communication benchmarking study in which more than 700 association executives participate. Year after year their No.1 communication challenge remains the same: “Information Overload/Cutting Through the Clutter.”

Jenna Wortham wrote a thought-provoking piece in yesterday’s New York Time about the deluge of email we’re struggling to manage. She laments how “stagnant the format of email has remained, while the rest of communication and social networking has surged light years ahead.”

Technology consultant and blogger, Joshua Lyman, who was quoted in Wortham’s article observed that humans only have a finite amount of “processing power” before they start to feel overloaded. Interestingly, Lyman argued that it’s not the volume of email; it’s the email that requires us think carefully before we react—i.e. “slow down, find the file, compose a great email back.”

Wortham reviewed a variety of in-box management tools and Lyman suggested taking charge of the information overload problem by putting a Twitter-like character limit on our emails and finding better ways to collaborate so we don’t need “10 back-and-forth exchanges” in order to organize an outing or lunch. All good suggestions, but even Wortham predicted that no amount of sorting software or folders will stop “overzealous emailers who insist on hitting REPLY ALL on group messaging.” And we’ve all worked at organizations in which even the most minute of communications must be CC’d to half the company by an insecure or backstabbing colleague.

Suggestions for taming the email beast

Here are some email management techniques that we use internally which have also worked well for our clients:

1. Think before you send. Have you checked your subject line carefully? If it doesn’t correspondent closely to the message that’s within, then it’s not going to make it to anyone’s “Must read” list. That goes for marketing email as well as internal communication with subject lines such as: “Touching base”,  “RE: RE: Weekly Status” or the title of a thread started two months ago or even worse just a blank, or just the words “FWD or Re:”

2. No Forward/ CC Day. Have one day each week in which nobody at your organization can send an email to more than one person.  Watch how fast your email volume goes down when only the single most important decision maker is targeted. If that’s still not helping, then start reviewing your management team and structure. Might be time to start weeding the passive aggressives off your payroll—i.e. the people empowered to say “No” quickly but who aren’t empowered to say “Yes”--ever.

3. Block the BCC.  For heaven’s sake, do whatever it takes to prevent people from using the Blind Carbon Copy option unless it’s absolutely necessary for legal, compliance or client confidentiality reasons.  BCC’ing can be even worse than overzealous forwarding and CC’ing.

4. Limit email to 3 sessions per day. That’s right. We said 3 times per day. Wean yourself of the instant message/instant response mentality. You’re not teenagers anymore. Have the discipline to limit your email sessions to three times per day: (a) when you first get to work; (b) when you return from lunch and (c) before you go home. It’s OK to check email at night, weekends and on vacation. It’s good to know ahead of time what fires you’ll have to put out the next day. But for heaven sake, DON’T RESPOND immediately. You’ll just get you into an endless loop of micro-messages, CC’s and forward’s. It’ll keep you up at night worrying and you won’t spend any quality time with your friends, family or significant other.

5. Empowerment. Finally, empower your people to make real decisions. That will eliminate 90 percent of the extraneous CC’ing, forwarding and superfluous cell phone calls: “Hey did you get me email?”

Conclusion

Email is one of the most powerful and most cost-effective communication tools ever invented both for B2B marketing purposes and for communication with your clients and colleagues. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most abused. Sure there are several promising inbox management tools on the market. But, technology isn’t the solution. People are the solution. The better we can be about sending out relevant communication that really matters, and about empowering our managers to make real decisions with authority, the less overwhelming our email will be on whichever device we choose to consume it.

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TAGS: email overload, communication benchmarking study, Jenna Wortham, Joshua Lyman

Attention Is the New Currency for Business Marketers
Mobile advertising and marketing gains adoption, share of budget. Tablet users act on ads and make purchases

Hard to believe 2012 is already half over, but the calendar doesn’t lie. It’s July 4^th and on this Independence Day, let’s take a quick break from all our devices, find a comfortable hammock, beach blanket or chaise lounge and take a few moment to be thankful.

Yes, we’ve got a lot of problems at the municipal, national and global levels. But, the U.S. is still a free country. It has some of the happiest and most generous citizens in the world and a pretty good quality of life. Best of all, if you don’t like it here, you can always pack up and move somewhere else. We don’t hold our citizens hostage. We always bounce back from adversity and probably have the worst of the latest economic crisis behind us.

As you look up in the sky tonight, remember why we love pyrotechnics. It’s in our DNA. We’ve always been big, bold and loud. If the founding fathers were around today, they’d probably have signed a document called something like, “The Declaration of Go Big or Go Home.”

We don’t penalize for failure and we believe if you’re not making mistakes once in a while, you’re not trying hard enough.

Our firm has long been an advocate of the entrepreneurial spirit and we think entrepreneurship is what’s going to create jobs and drive us out of our current slump as the prospect of a safe, secure corporate or government careers becomes less and less a reality for the majority of Americans.

Are we over-stimulated or not?

While traditionally thinking has been that trying juggle too many task dilutes the quality of our thinking and our ability to concentrate fully on each task. But, now researchers say our brains can be trained like other muscles in the body to adapt and reorganize its pathways too handle the many inputs of stimulation. For more on this notion, see Jenna Wortham’s thought-provoking article in Sunday’s New York Times.

While some brains (and age-groups) seem more adaptable to digital multi-tasking than others, many think our species will continue to evolve to cope with an era of increasing and round-the-clock stimulation.

To reach this new multi-tasking consumers and clients, smart marketing—not excessive marketing--will win the way in the front door.

Mobile, mobile and more mobile

If you think you’re seeing more advertising on your mobile devices these days, you’re not alone. Researchers say mobile advertising increased 150 percent to $900 million in the first quarter of 2012 from $400 million in the year-earlier period, according to research firm IDC. Mobile now accounts for nearly 10 percent of the overall advertising pay, up from 7.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011.


The Interactive Advertising Bureau last month estimated mobile ad spending worldwide in 2011 reached $5.3 billion, including $1.6 billion in the U.S. And a new study by the OPA and Frank Magid Associates found that U.S. tablet adoption has nearly tripled to 31 percent in 2012 (74 million tablet users), up from 12 percent (28 million users) in 2011 and is expected to reach 47 percent by mid 2013.

What encouraged us most about the research is that 38 percent of tablet users have made a purchase after having seen tablet advertising, buying an average of $359 in products in the past year. The research also found that 29 percent of tablet users indicated that tablet advertising drives them to research products and 23 percent have clicked on an advertisement.

Mobile marketing gains adoption

Meanwhile, according to a new StrongMail/Zoomerang survey of business leaders, only 45 percent of companies are conducting some form of mobile marketing. Mobile websites, mobile applications and QR codes seem to be the most popular forms of mobile marketing.

Researchers found that nearly half of businesses conducting mobile marketing have achieved a basic level of integration between their email and mobile programs, with top areas of focus being mobile landing pages (32%), mobile number capture at email sign-up (25%) and mobile optimized email templates (22%). Less than one third of businesses (29%) are doing more sophisticated things such as leveraging mobile response data to optimize offers in email or other channels.

According to researchers, mobile was most often used to increase sales (cited by 59 percent of respondents); to improve customer service (52%), to increase brand awareness (49%) and to acquire new customers (45%).

Nearly 40 percent cite lack of strategy as top reason for lack of adoption, followed by lack of resources (22%).

Macro View: Gains in business activity and home sales

Despite yesterday’s disappointing IMF forecast for the U.S. economy yesterday, we were encouraged by Friday’s report from the Institute of Supply Management that showed another increase in its monthly purchasing managers’ business activity barometer to 52.9 in June. Anything above 50 is considered “growth” rather than “contraction.”

Also, new homes were sold in May at the fastest pace in more than two years. The increase suggests a modest recovery is continuing in the housing market, despite a persistently lousy job market.

The Commerce Department said earlier in the week that sales of new homes increased 7.6 percent in May from April. That is the best pace since April 2010, the last month that buyers could qualify for a federal home-buying tax credit. What’s more, in the heavily populated Northeast, new home sales accelerated a whopping 36.7 percent over the same period.

And the National Association of Realtors last week that pending home sales climbed to the highest level since the end of a federal tax credit for first-time buyers in September 2010.

Conclusion

From where we sit, psychology (and uncertainty about the November elections) seems to be driving business conditions more than hard data.  As always, those who can think, act and execute before the official “All Clear” signal comes out are the ones who will continue to be ahead of the pack.

Enjoy the fireworks tonight. And when you get back to the office, remember Go Big of Go Home. That’s what our country is all about.

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TAGS: Jenna Wortham, OPA, Frank Magid Associates, Go Big or Go Home, Strong Mail, Zoomerang, home sales, Fireworks, July 4, National Association of Realtors, IMF