With Emails, we have a love or hate relationship. On an average, an office worker spends nearly 23 percent of their work time in handling emails. Email as a communication channel has a great role to play in our lives yet it is one of the most abused channels. As an organization that primarily relies on emails to generate business and maintain healthy relationships with its customers, it’s your responsibility to keep your clients’ inboxes clean and reduce email pollution.
The total number of emails sent and received per day including business and consumer emails is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 3 percent over the next four years, reaching over 246 billion by the end of 2019. According to Statistica, as of March 2017, spam messages accounted for 56.87 percent of e-mail traffic worldwide. This clearly indicates the extent of pollution that persists with the email channel. Here are four ways in which you can be more responsible while using the email channel and reduce unnecessary pollution that persists in the channel.
Know Who Your Target Reader Is:
If you are sending out mass emails, it is important to determine who the right receivers of your email are. You must know the information that your prospects are already aware of and the information that they may actually need. This will help email marketers create the right content and adopt the right tone for the message. Knowing the right audience for your email will help you reach out to the right people and avoid email spamming people who may not be interested in your emails.
Respect Customer Sentiments:
A lot of organizations send permission based emails to their subscribers. However, even when a customer requests to unsubscribe, some organizations continue to spam them against their will. A business organization must respect the will of their customers and
Transparent, Concise and Relevant Content:
The content of your email must have a clear intent and should not mislead the reader. The subject line should clearly state the purpose of the email. The content of the email should be minimal and convey just what is relevant.
Avoid Irrelevant Clutter:
A lot of emails are filled up with unnecessary clutter. While drafting emails, too many graphical elements, links, long signatures, legal disclaimers, and attachments must be avoided unless it’s absolutely necessary. An email must be addressed to the right person and the right people should be kept in CC and BCC. While replying, one must not blindly click the reply all button and choose the receivers carefully.
Email for years has been one of the most reliable channels of communication. Especially, it is considered to be the prime communication line among the businesses for their internal and external communication. The popularity of email in recent years has however taken a hit due to the increasing number of spam. And this makes it imperative to take individual responsibility and keep the channel free of pollution.