The End of Tonnage E-mail Marketing

I generally don’t make predictions because I consider doing so to be a prime opportunity to make an ass of oneself.

However, as we move into the second decade of the twenty first century, one prediction for marketing seems glaringly obvious: The era of tonnage e-mail marketing is drawing to a close, and direct marketers who think primarily in terms of file size are going to begin to see their e-mail programs fail—that is if they’re not already seeing them fail.

The tonnage marketing philosophy evolved quite rightly from the traditional mailing list industry. After all, a larger postal file will contain more likely responders. But this thinking was based on a medium where the primary sorting-and-delivery mechanism—the U.S. Postal Service—doesn’t decide whether or not to deliver mail based on whether recipients want it or not. They just deliver what they’re paid to deliver.

But as e-mail inbox providers get increasingly sophisticated at identifying and delivering only mail recipients want—and, frankly, they’re already doing a pretty spectacular job of that given the challenges they face—tonnage marketers will increasingly be identified as senders of garbage and will see their blasts treated as such.

Seems obvious enough, but here’s why the tonnage marketing philosophy will not die quietly: People who make careers in direct marketing generally have a gift for ignoring critics. Why? Because they are subject to a never-ending barrage of opinions on their craft from people—in both professional and personal settings—who have no idea what they’re talking about.

If DMers listened to their critics, they’d send one catalog a year because 12 is too many, or they wouldn’t ask for the order in their creative because it’s tacky. (I’ve actually heard that last one.)

A DMer who listens to critics offline is a DMer soon to be out of business. So naturally, they’ve taken this thinking online.

Case in point: I once had a confrontation with a former publisher in which I was telling him not to send certain e-mails to his file.

“YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I CAN’T SEND E-MAIL TO MY CUSTOMERS?!” he asked incredulously.

“No, I’m telling you shouldn’t spam them because it’ll cost you,” I responded, probably less civilly than I’m recounting here, but memory has a way of glossing over one’s own flawed actions, no?

“YOU’RE TELLING ME I CAN’T MAIL MY CUSTOMERS!” he bellowed in disbelief.

Here was a man who had made millions by ignoring naysayers. It was hard to blame him for looking at me like I had circus clowns coming out of my ass. However, it was clear to me at the time the only way he’d be made to listen was by getting his mail blocked. I left the company shortly thereafter so I have no idea if he carried out and/or paid a price for his reckless e-mail scheme.

In any case, here’s the deal: Ignoring critics has served direct marketers well offline. But it’ll destroy their e-mail programs—and probably very soon.