New email research: Only 28% of messages contain relevant content

That was the subject line that greeted me from one of my favorite and most trusted marketing information sources. I suppose I really shouldn’t be surprised, based on the email I receive on a daily basis. Here are just a few of the subject lines from the last couple of days:

    “Cyber Monday Deals | NORTON SECURITY SOFTWARE”

     I never showed any interest in this or similar products from this particular retailer.

     “The CyberMonday FREE SHIPPING Event! (All Day…3+ Bottles Ship Free!)”

     I do like wine, but I live in a state that by law doesn’t allow alcohol through mail order.

     “Holiday Special: 58% Off PR*Bars Plus Free Shipping”

     Again, I’ve never done anything to indicate I’d have any interest in this product.

     Yesterday: “Today's Your Last Chance to Save 4 Ways!”

     Then today from the same retailer: “25% Off! Cyber Monday Starts Now!”

     So I guess I really didn’t miss out on that last chance savings.

But I was surprised by this statistic nonetheless. In this day and age, with the technology we have widely available, this had to be some sort of misleading tease. So I investigated further and wound up even more surprised.

The source for this research was Marketing Sherpa’s 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, created from a survey of over 2,700 email marketers. That means that these companies know that they are not sending relevant emails and are doing it anyway! Are you kidding me?

I know that email is cheap, but the potential costs are much higher than the price of delivery. It can diminish the impact of the entire channel for years to come. At best, people opt out. At worst they consider you spam. Most likely they just stop paying attention to your emails all together.

Take a look at your own inbox during the course of a week. I bet you immediately delete emails that you originally opted into without more than a glace at the subject line because they send mostly irrelevant promotions.

For people who talk a lot about cutting through the clutter, it sure seems from here like most email marketers are just adding to it.