Three quarters of people say your marketing isn't for them

75% of UK consumers say the marketing they receive is irrelevant to them.

That comes from Optimizely's Marketer's Survival Guide, published at the start of August, which surveyed 1,000 UK consumers alongside 100 UK marketers. Alongside that headline figure: 69% receive duplicate or generic messages, 61% feel overwhelmed by the volume, and 35% unsubscribe after a single poor experience.

One caveat worth stating up front. Optimizely sells personalisation software, so read the direction rather than the decimal points.

The direction holds. And the more interesting half of the study is what the marketers said.

Both ends of the same problem

60% of marketers admitted they launch campaigns without the time or data to optimise them. 54% move straight on to the next campaign without evaluating the one before it.

Put those next to the consumer numbers and you are not looking at two findings. You are looking at one problem from both ends.

Irrelevance is what happens when the calendar is full and nobody stops to ask who the next piece is for. It is rarely a failure of writing. The copy is usually fine. It was aimed at everyone, because aiming takes a decision and the decision takes time that the schedule did not allow.

Output is easy to count. So output becomes the thing the team manages, and relevance is what gives way.

The ten minute test

There is a quick way to find out whether this is happening in your business.

Open your last five sends. Emails, posts, whatever went out. For each one, name the person it was for.

Not a segment. Not "small business owners". A person, with a job title, a budget, and a reason to care about this specific thing this month.

If three of the five give you the same answer, or no answer at all, you have found your gap. And if you look at which ones you could name confidently, they are usually the ones that got replies. That correlation shows up almost every time I run this with a client, and it is normally the moment the argument for doing less lands.

Fewer pieces, aimed better

The fix is not a personalisation tool. For most small businesses it is arithmetic.

Halve the schedule. Put the hours you just freed into deciding who each remaining piece is for. Four thoughtful pieces a month, each aimed at someone you can picture, will beat twelve that nobody finishes reading.

That feels risky if you have spent two years being told consistency is everything. Consistency matters. Consistency at the cost of relevance just means you are reliably ignored.

Keep one measure per piece. A reply, or a booked call. Something a human did on purpose. Impressions and reach will tell you the message was delivered, which was never the thing in doubt.

Small lists beat large ones

The 35% who unsubscribe after one poor experience are worth sitting with, because they explain why volume strategies decay.

Every irrelevant send costs you a fraction of the audience you spent money building. Do it often enough and you are refilling a leaking list rather than growing one. The list looks stable and the quality of it is falling.

Four hundred people who asked to hear from you are worth more than four thousand who tolerate you. They open, they reply, and when you have something to sell they are already half convinced.

Decide who it's for, then decide what to send

The order matters more than anything else here. Most marketing calendars run the other way round: decide what to send, then work out who might want it.

Relevance is mostly attention and judgement, and both of those cost less than another tool.

If your marketing is going out consistently and landing quietly, the problem is usually one level below the copy. A Messaging and Positioning Sprint starts at £2,000 and exists to settle who you are for and what changes for them, so that every piece after it has something to aim at.