100,000 unread emails and zero regrets: New ways to think about email marketing

I recently hit a significant personal milestone. The little red bubble on my phone by the email icon ticked over into six digits. Yes, that’s 100,000 emails in my Gmail inbox that I haven’t opened.

Not only have I not opened them, I haven’t read them, clicked on a link, put them in a folder, starred them or deleted them. I haven’t even considered assigning them to a label or category or colour code. And of course I haven’t replied, forwarded or unsubscribed.

I know that devotees of inbox zero will be aghast and may even be coming out in a rash right now just from a cursory glance at this: 

Inbox 100k

Inbox 100k

How could I? Does it not annoy me? How can I sleep at night for crying out loud?

The answer is that this number causes me zero consternation. I created my Gmail account in 2004 and if anything, as the red bubble counter ticked up towards 100k in recent weeks I’ve been enjoying the mild anticipation that came with approaching six figures. (Anything counts as a hobby in these unprecedented times you understand.)

And - even if it took just an optimistic three seconds to delete/file/tag each email - I would have wasted spent three-and-a-half days of my life just to see a zero on a screen.

Here are three ways to think differently about email as both a (marketing) sender and a human recipient.

 1. Email as a way to get and keep brand awareness

Were those 100,000 emails a complete waste of time? Many of them will have been automated, but even those involve some level of human effort to get them set them up and fired into my inbox. 

Well no they weren’t – and the reason is because I looked at them all. Because my inbox is personal and there is important stuff in there, I scan the sender name and subject line of every email I receive.

Even if the email you sent me hasn’t been opened or clicked, I have still taken a millisecond or two to see your brand name and what you’ve put in the subject line. In that tiny moment – even if I take no action – there is still a little moment of consideration and brand recognition.

Actual decision-making process of an inbox scanner

Actual decision-making process of an inbox scanner

What’s happening in the brain of the inbox scanner? Likely a rapid weighing up of a few factors including:

  • Do I know who you are?

  • What’s your email about?

  • Based on what I know about you and what the subject line tells me, is it worth my time to stop scanning and open?

For me, the answer was no over 100,000 times, but I still saw that brand or person and took a moment to connect them with their email subject. There was a small slice of share of mind built up more than 100,000 times over years in some instances.

2. The email inbox as a search engine

If “inbox scanning” is what maintains brand awareness, then it’s using the inbox as a search engine that happens lower down the funnel.

Let’s say one day I decide I need a new lamp. Habitat springs to mind because I get their emails as a regular reminder of their existence and I know they make lamps. I search for “habitat” in my inbox and see they emailed me yesterday and they have a sale on. Next thing you know, I’ve ordered a lamp.

How to buy a lamp

How to buy a lamp

Of course, it’s even better when there’s an exclusive offer for people on the email list like this example from COS. If I needed some minimalist garbs when this arrived or found it through a later inbox search, then this would probably get me spending:

How to buy minimalist garbs

How to buy minimalist garbs


3. The email newsletter subscription is mightier than the click

As Ann Handley points out, your inbox is the last communication channel that’s controlled by you and not an algorithm. It’s personal and it’s intimate.

If you (as a marketer or otherwise) are invited into someone’s inbox, that’s significant – and even more so as retargeting cookies become a thing of the past.

In the examples above I probably didn’t invite these brands in – I either bought something once and now they email me with more things to buy, or I gave them my email address in exchange for a discount code for something I was already going to buy.

So while it’s OK (and to be expected) if your audience doesn’t open your emails if you’re trying to sell them something right off the bat, it’s less OK if you’re genuinely trying to engage them in the long term – and that’s what an email newsletter is for.

Tell me something good: A Sage Advice newsletter sign-up page

Tell me something good: A Sage Advice newsletter sign-up page

Over at Sage Advice, email newsletter subscribers are our most engaged audience and that translates all the way down to dollars and pounds.

In fact, subscribers typically spend three times more than people who just download gated content and that’s because the newsletter delivers something valuable and timely every time. It’s for life, not just for shopping.

So, I have no regrets over the unread emails and nor should you – unless your newsletter is languishing in there of course.

An inbox postscript

Less than two months after hitting 100,000, today my inbox looks like this:

Progress

Progress

Bring on email one million.