How much e-mail is too much? That’s a very good question, and one that tends to cause kerfuffles among communicators and project leaders.
In a recent blog post, Steve Daigneault shares a creative and effective idea he’s put into place at Amnesty International USA. He’s developed e-mail guidelines that determine what the organization will communicate, and how often.
These guidelines hold that the best e-mails show a crisis, an opportunity to solve the crisis, and a way to take action.
The guidelines also impose a limit on the number of e-mails the organization can send per month, while allowing a few special exceptions. Program supervisors decide which topics are the most important from their monthly allotment, not the online team.
Daigneault has found e-mails that clearly show the importance of the news, as well as the advocacy strategy, far outperform others.
His guidelines provide a solid, sensible approach. If you set your guidelines in advance and communicate them to all e-mail senders in your organization, you will manage expectations internally and bring greater peace to e-mail decisions. You’ll also bring greater peace to your audience, with clearer, more-actionable e-mails and a less-cluttered in-box.
That sounds like a solution on which everyone can agree.
