Inbox Anxieties: B2B Marketers Need To Keep In Mind These Email-Receiving Emotions

I’ve written plenty about consumers unsubscribing to brand emails, for reasons ranging from the volume of messages received to feeling creeped out by intrusive personalization. (And let the record show that the last time I wrote about this topic, it was on the creepiest day of the year: Halloween.)

But one spooky aspect I didn’t even peek at from behind covered eyes was the idea of dread, and EmailTooltester has recent survey numbers that are shining light on how that affects email behavior in ways long before open-rates are a factor.

According to its survey about digital communication at work, almost four in every five American adults (78.7%) have dreaded opening their work email inbox, with more than half (58.5%) saying they experience that emotion regularly.

“It was unsurprising then that a similar amount (80.8%) have felt anxious about email correspondence at work,” the research says, “and more than half of people regularly feel anxious (58.3%) about email correspondence at work. Outcomes of this anxiety include triple-checking emails, and three-quarters (76.2%) say that their anxiety is compounded by the struggle to read someone’s tone via email or work message software.”

On average, each person spends two hours and 45 minutes daily on digital work communications that includes email and platforms such as Slack or Teams. That average worker finds only 41.7% of work emails to be relevant to them.

(Source: EmailTooltester)

“And it’s not just email communication that people think is wasting their time,” the research says. “Three-quarters (77%) say that more time is spent communicating digitally about a problem (taking into account all platforms, like Zoom and Slack) than you would need to in real life.”

The effects of all these negative emotions — from the 73.6% that are so burnt out that they communicate less with loved ones to the two-thirds who lose sleep over work-communication stress — is enough to necessitate evaluations on a personal level (not to mention, as 90.4% of those surveyed think would be beneficial, a possible right-to-disconnect rule or law).

If nothing else, it’s something marketers might want to consider with their campaigns, so as not to overwhelm email recipients and contribute to these “troubling concerns,” as MediaPost’s Ray Schultz calls them. All the more reason to fine-tune personalization efforts, pay attention to preferred channels, and build brand loyalty both within and outside the inbox.

Probably better than taking Schultz’s tongue-in-cheek advice.

“Maybe it would help to put laughing emojis on your email,” Schultz says, “or maybe you should just call on the phone.”

For more information about how to improve your email deliverability, download A Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing by Mirabel’s Marketing Manager: