In fact, send a lot more emails. There, I said it. I feel better now. As email marketers, sending emails is what we do. It's what we get paid to do (or we get paid to tell marketers how to do it better). We love email marketing because it generates brand awareness, conversions and revenue, and recipients value it. But every week I run across a blog post, article or discussion in some online forum where well-intentioned people argue about frequency and sending too much email. Frankly, I'm sick of the topic and am opening my hotel window right now and yelling, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." See, we are arguing about the wrong thing. While those of us in the industry are biased, we know that email rocks -- and for many companies, is thehighest-ROI marketing channel. So, why do we tell people not to send more emails? We should be telling marketers to send MORE email that provides customer value and drives increased loyalty and revenue. Shouldn't your goal as a marketer be to find ways to send more emails, not fewer? The issue is quality and value, not frequency. The issue is not to be lazy or stupid, to quote my friend Dela Quist of AlchemyWorx. We have a client that sends 50 emails a day. Another one sends more than 75 emails a day, and they are working on creating more emails to send. These are mostly transactional and triggered emails. Now, of course, most people in their databases might not receive a single email on any given day. Others might receive several based on their behavior and preferences. When we talk about frequency, almost everyone assumes that "sending more" equates with a brand sending irrelevant batch-and-blast emails every day to its entire database, which will drive hordes of unsubscribes and spam complaints. "Sending more" can and should mean sending more segmented, targeted, real-time behavior-based emails, as well as fun, timely broadcast emails that are engaging and provide value. Increase Your Mix of Emails for Smarter (Higher) Frequency Let's enjoy email's renaissance and stop beating ourselves up about email volumes because we're afraid a few bad apples will mess up the industry. Of course, some companies probably overdo it with the frequency of their broadcast emails, but most companies have only started to scratch the surface on sending emails to individuals based on their behavior, profile or customer lifecycle stage or value. "Happy birthday" emails are a simple example of where the majority of email marketers are leaving money on the table by sending too few emails. Last year, I analyzed my own inbox receipt of birthday emails from 15 brands and found that only one of them sent more than one email. What a lost opportunity. Your recipients are busy and need a nudge and reminders. One email simply isn't enough. A simple program could be set up to include a track of several automated emails sent to recipients based on their interaction or lack of it with your emails, pages they might visit on your Web site, the number of days remaining in your offer and more. Multiply this by 50 other types of email programs, and you have a tremendous opportunity to send more emails that drive not only revenue, but also value for your customers. Let's Switch the Dialogue Email marketers love to argue with each other, but on the frequency topic, I believe we are arguing about the wrong thing. It’s time to move on. Instead, let's discuss what's holding marketers back from sending a lot more, more-sophisticated emails. Emails rock! Why would you want to send fewer of them? Until next time, take it up a notch!