One of the more curious differences between email and direct mail is the way in which many firms consider the issue of “how often to send.”

In the briefest terms, many companies have tended to use the post quite rarely because of worries about cost, whereas they tend to email quite regularly (especially if they have their own email list).

In my view it is possible to email people very regularly (this email service reaches you several times a week for example) and engage with the recipient – just as it is possible to get people to subscribe to a weekly magazine through the post or to read a daily paper.

The key therefore is neither the medium, nor the regularity, but the content.

Of course there can be a situation in which you can mail or email people so often that they stop reading, but most firms are nowhere near this.   They get unsubscribes from the list not because they are sending out too much material but because the material they send out is not interesting enough.

I have often been known to unsubscribe from an email list after just one or two emails simply because they are wholly irrelevant to me, while I stay with other lists that supply me with news on a daily basis because every week or so I find something I really want to read.

Therefore the focus of attention must be on this simple issue: if you are mailing me, either through the post or through email, how do you get me to know that I want to read this article?

The solution has to be through

a) the headline (and subject line in an email)

b) the opening few words

c) the way the piece develops via the opening words of each paragraph (this on the basis that most readers skim articles trying to pick up the key points quickly).

d) the variation in the way you write.

Therefore all of the thought has to go into the text – as in, why am I writing this, what do I want the reader to do at the end, how am I going to get the reader to do this?

There’s a lot of discussion on topics around this on www.theory.bz but if you want to start somewhere there is http://www.theory.bz/factor1.html

Alternatively give me a call on 01536 399 013 and I will be pleased to talk any aspect of this through with you.