3 Tips to Overcome Email Fatigue in the New Year

The start of a new year can bring many new opportunities for marketers. Unfortunately, this season of fresh starts also comes with its own set of unique challenges. Once the calendar flips to January, many consumers feel compelled to clean hypothetical house, purging clutter, conquering unhealthy habits and even opting out of emails from the brands that crammed their inboxes in December.

So, how can retailers deal with this detox mode — and make sure their messages aren't lost in the New Year's clean sweep? Here are three tips to help your business overcome post-holiday subscriber email fatigue:

1. Spotlight your most relevant, value-added content in January. For a brand to keep me around in the midst of the big January purge, I've got to see some real value. Now that we're past the holiday crunch, I'm less interested in "save big, limited time, act now" value. I'm looking for content that makes me feel smarter, inspires positive change and builds on the trust I've put in my relationship with your business.

Use January to show your brand's worth as a long-term investment. Share evergreen tips and advice that are related to, but not all about, your product or service. This is a great time of year to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry or vertical. The best way to accomplish that is to regularly share relevant content that first makes your subscribers click and then makes them think.

2. Create an email series geared toward making your subscriber's life a little easier in the new year. It may seem counterintuitive to create a series targeted to email-fatigued subscribers, but this tactic shows consumers you have valuable information to share — and that you know how to break that content down into bite-sized nuggets that won't tax their attention, schedule or inbox storage capacity.

First, select an umbrella topic relevant to your recipients’ business objectives. You can probably look to your own first quarter plan for great ideas on content that will resonate with your audience. Think "organization" and "optimization" to start. Those concepts are practically universal this time of year.

Once you know what you want to say, create a schedule and a mini messaging plan for this push. For example, you might send four messages to six messages every few days. Or consider offering subscribers a weekly "Top 5 Tips for the New Year" countdown. The goal is to create meaningful, periodic touchpoints over the course of a few weeks to remind your subscribers that you're a valuable resource year-round, not just during the holidays.

3. Be willing to concede to a scale back. Subscribers’ needs are constantly changing, so flexibility is key. The customer who wanted your sales emails twice a day in December may not want to sustain that frequent contact now that their annual shopping binge is over for the year. However, with some savvy handling, you can maintain the contact by simply scaling back your contact strategy.

Consider offering a way for readers to manage their subscription preferences. An "all or nothing" model can alienate consumers who only want to hear from you on their schedule. Instead, build some flexibility into your subscriber services and allow customers to deal with their New Year email fatigue by reducing contact, rather than eliminating it completely. Make it easy to "turn down" the conversation volume, but continue to share valuable content on a schedule that appeals to each individual subscriber.

That said, remember the average email list churns by about 30 percent every year. If a few subscribers decide to opt out of your list, it's OK because new subscribers are everywhere! Put equal emphasis on finding new contacts and retaining the ones you already have, and you'll be well positioned for success in 2015.

Christopher Lester is the vice president of sales at Emma, an email marketing company.