The issue is that we focus on the medium — e-mail — and ignore the purpose. We don’t think about our communication from the buyer’s standpoint. And that’s where we go wrong.

The first step towards getting this right is thinking about your buyer (or customer), thinking about the stages of engagement with your organization and the content consumed/channels communicated through, and then saying, “What am I saying to who, when and via what channel?”

Once you’ve rationalized it should start becoming clear — for instance — that a new offer via e-mail should be suppressed against customers becuase that offer is only for NEW customers, and because it is easy to suppress b/c you have a customer list already. And so by rationalizing in this way, you’ll have thought through the process of who this should be sent to … and who it shouldn’t.

Yet too many of us buy a list, hit send and forget. We’ve got to stop that as marketers. Our job is to engage buyers and customers, not to e-mail more people than the other company!