Did you get that email?

In the association space, there is one critical area of operations that often stokes differing opinions. I’m talking about member and customer communications. We all know how to best communicate with our members and customers, don't we? And of course, everyone is an expert.

Well, I think it is reasonable to expect everyone to have an opinion given that everyone is probably a member or a subscriber of something in their daily lives. It may not match the industry in which they work, but we all have our own preferences on how we want to be contacted. Even within our workplaces we often have preferences for how we want to be contacted by our colleagues (email vs Teams anyone?!). These conversations can often trigger a bit of angst, particularly for those marketing and communications specialists!

Let's consider how communications channels may have changed over the years...

How did we communicate with our members and customers 40 years ago? I don't know, I hadn't been born! But an educated guess would assume that the main communications of the day were centred around direct mail. Perhaps landline phone calls. Fax machines were the revolutionary technology of the day.

How did we communicate with our members and customers 20 years ago? If I cast my mind back to my student-bar-impacted-recollection of my internship all those years ago (well, 18 years ago) I recall corporate communications being hugely driven by email and phone calls (mixed between landline and mobile). Email was still in its relative infancy. People were more likely to read emails compared to now because they didn't get as many of them. Mobile calls were almost always answered because mobiles were still relatively novel and people didn't receive a dozen scam calls a week as they do now (or is that just me?). Direct mail was still popular. Fax machines were definitely still in use. An organisation's choice of communications would have been undoubtedly more than in the 20 years preceding. However, compared with now, it was still relatively communication clutter-free.

How do we communicate with our members and customers now? Some organisations do it better than others, but I would argue that we now have a massively convoluted minefield of communication options available. This is driven by the increasing social media platforms available. Organisations have an increased choice by which they can communicate with customers and members. Members and/or customers of (particularly) large organisations can be hit with communications left, right and centre. SMS? Check. Phone calls? Check. Email? Check. Post box? Check. LinkedIn? Well, who doesn't have a LinkedIn tab open?! Add to that - multiple email addresses, multiple social media platforms. The choice appears endless. The temptation would be to utilise your full arsenal of comms channels. The more you send the better the cut through to your audience, right? Well, that could be partially true if the answer is sending more comms through a greater variety of channels. Some of your audience may only use certain channels, therefore you want to ensure they receive your comms. If your pool of resources is significant enough to be able to do this, then great. Is it the most efficient way? Probably not.

So I think it's safe to say there is more choice of communications platforms than ever before.

Let's talk about frequency…

What happens when your members and customers are sent too few communications? They might not be fully informed. Things may get missed. Overall engagement may be reduced.

What happens when your members and customers are sent too many communications? The impact of each one could drop. You may also experience an increased unsubscribe rate.

Sending to multiple channels has its place, but also needs to be carefully considered. You may reach a greater audience (great!). You also may be wasting resources and effort (not so great!). For those smaller organisations, wasting resources and effort is a significant risk. For those larger organisations, it may be a risk worth taking.

Is there a perfect number? Like many things, the answer will often be “it depends”. Interestingly to note an article from Campaign Monitor suggests that "sending emails two to three times per week seems to be the peak stat."

Content is king...

If your organisation works in a narrow or niche area, the chances are each and every communication will be of greater interest to your audience, and the content is going to be of greater interest more often. The content will be more potent. Consumption of the communication is likely to be higher.

On the other hand, if your organisation offers a plethora of products and services, then some content may appeal more to your audience more than others, and a risk of disengagement emerges. It’s a fine balance between offering content that increases engagement and offering too much content that erodes engagement. ??

Generally speaking, and considering the points noted above, in today’s world organisations are competing for attention in an increasingly populated world of communications. They are often competing with other organisations, sometimes competing with themselves.

There is always a cost involved. Nothing is created for free. Sometimes a smaller organisation will be more successful in communication engagement because of their limitations. They only have the resources to use certain platforms, and their audience know what it is from the get-go. The trade-off might be that they're potentially missing out on a different audience by not using other platforms. A larger organisation may have the financial means to leverage more communication options available to them and different styles to reach audiences far and wide. But their trade-off may be a reduced bang-for-buck in terms of impact.

How will we communicate with our members and customers in future?

The simple answer is 'personalisation' based on ‘preference’.

Our members and our customers will receive communications how they want to receive it, when they want to receive it. To the channel they want. At the frequency they want. At the time they want. You may know what your audience is interested in, but how do they want to be informed about it? Some organisations already have this mechanism in place.

The days of an organisation dictating the platform and frequency their members and customers use may be declining. Whether or not an experienced marketing and communucations professional would agree with me, the notion of full customisation of communications seems to be the Holy Grail.

In summary

If an organisation doesn’t know what their members and customers want, and how they want it, at best they will lose their attention. At worst they will lose them as members or customers. And every organisation is competing for attention in an increasingly competitive world.

Our communication to members and customers should be focused on quality rather than quantity. And quality communication can only happen if your audience wants it at that time (frequency) and at that place (platform).

So why the Tetris image at the top? Well, I’ve always compared my inbox to a game of Tetris. It’s easy to manage Tetris until it isn’t. It’s easy to manage your inbox when there isn’t much in there. Things can get out of control quite fast. If you send a whole bunch of irrelevant emails to your audience, they’re not going to read them and their attention span will dwindle quickly. It’s a bit like receiving a whole bunch of useless shapes to clear the rows in Tetris. If you can send the right shapes at the right time, you’ll be in for a high score. And if you can the right communications at the right time to your members and customers, you’ll achieve a high engagement level.

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