The Yiddish word I am referring to is Nudnik and it has a few translations; some of which are not fit to be printed here. It basically means a pest or a nuisance. Or one who sends too many emails to his or her opt-in list.
You know you're being a Nudnik when:
- The rate at which your emails are being opened is lower than the amount of rainfall in the Sahara.
- After every email blast, your opt-in list shrinks quicker than your fruit of the looms in a hot wash.
- If you send 3 emails in a row that all say the same thing except you change the title.
- And last but not least..You send emails to your list three times in a row on the same day, every day of the week.....In this case, the word Nudnik is not enough to describe you. Idiot is a better one!
There once was an economist named Vincent Pareto. He founded a principle that came to be known as the “Pareto Principle” and more commonly the “80/20” rule.
The root of this principle is that 20% of your input should yield 80% of the results you obtain. To put it in plain English, it means that 80% of the results you want, whether it be sales or subscriptions or anything else, is derived from 20% of your email list.
To take it further, take a look at it in a way that in order to gain that 80% from 20% of your list, 80% of your content should be relevant and offer useful and valuable information, while 20% should be dedicated to your sales pitch.
To take it even further (Are you still with me?), as a marketer of content, for every 10 emails you blast out to your list, 8 of them should include relevant and useful content and the 2 remaining ones should include product and offer pitches.
So, at this point you might ask: will abiding by this 80/20 rule prevent you from becoming a nudnik, a sloppy email marketer, a pest?
Sadly, it will not.
If you increase the quality and usefulness of content to more than the 80% level and the associated pitch type content to 20%, you might still be labeled a nudnik!
It should be noted that content by its lonesome will not save you. It takes time to consume, time to read and more than ever; time is in short supply.
Even your loving mother does not want to hear from you three times a day. She might think that you are the most awesome marketer on the planet. But, if she hears from you so often, even she might label you a nudnik!
A great way to set a barometer for nudnikism (I just made that word up) is to look at your own inbox; the gmail or hotmail account you never use. See how many emails you get from marketers whose lists you signed up for. Let's face it. Unless your marketing a cure for baldness, bad breath or a get rich quick scheme you can set up from a yurt in the Mongolian desert, you will most of the time never have anything that important to say that warrants emailing your list so often.
Now, note the frequency that you receive those emails. Spend some time reading the content. This might be a chore, but just do it this once. Now, take a look at the computer screen as if it's a mirror to your own email marketing soul. Do you see yourself as a reflection of the worst email violators in your inbox?
Take a look at the email marketers that send useful content at a rate that does not seem spammy. How do you relate to that? Maybe it's a frequency that you can follow. Research, refine and test. And one day you too might be on your way to great email marketing which works for your free website!
