I recently received an email marketing message from a local Public Relations professional. In this message, she touts her public relations expertise and says she’ll be sending out a series of short messages with a “PR Secret” once a day for the next four days. Her message ends with this sentence:

As always, please feel free to send me an email if you have any questions.

I recognized the name, and was reminded of a recent newspaper article whereby this same person tells us her system for managing and replying to email.

In the article, she bemoans email, saying that she must do something to manage the more than 500 pieces of mail she receives per day. So, she has chosen to respond to email only three times per week, and publicizes this by adding a message to her email signature: “In an effort to maximize my personal productivity … I will be addressing email messages only three times a week.”

I immediately smile. Isn’t it funny that a person who not only subscribes to this theory, but pitches her story about it to the local media, has chosen to execute an email marketing campaign as part of her business development efforts? And that we should feel free to send her an email if we have any questions?

Being in the marketing and public relations business myself, I believe that communication in all its forms is critical to the success of our firm – and to any firm in the PR and Marketing business. And that includes email. If we were to stop responding to email on a regular basis, I doubt we could do our jobs effectively or efficiently.

I did get the additional emails with the “PR Secrets,” and as I was writing this, I went back and re-read them. I wasn’t surprised to see that none of the “secrets” had to do with consistency of message.