At least I come to this question quite a lot.
While quality is better than quantity, it's sometimes hard for people new to digital marketing to understand.
I first state that sending to EVERYONE can lead to bad practice (hard bounces, soft bounces, unsubscribes, and worse marked as spam) AKA ending up in a spam folder or getting downgraded on your digital reputation AKA getting more limitations.
I also add that it's not like traditional media where you could pay for a space (commercial on a soap opera) and people have to see it. With digital platforms, the equation of what you paying to show your message includes people's reactions and that is where operating in negative can occur. From there I give an example I'm pretty sure they have lived with a YouTube ad that the only thing you think of is when you can skip and end up hating the brand (not buying it on purpose).
Would love to hear what you answer to this question that keeps popping up. (and forced to action in some cases)
I often used anecdotal stories. i.e. Had a client whose CEO insisted to send a message out to entire DB 3 years back, irrelevant of engagement and my serious pushback / warnings and due that they had a 9 month long battle with IP Reputation, spam lists etc. Always better to start small (in terms of audience sizes but also messaging frequency), establish benchmarks and expand from there. More often than not, precise messaging works far better than broad unsegmented.
I often used anecdotal stories. i.e. Had a client whose CEO insisted to send a message out to entire DB 3 years back, irrelevant of engagement and my serious pushback / warnings and due that they had a 9 month long battle with IP Reputation, spam lists etc. Always better to start small (in terms of audience sizes but also messaging frequency), establish benchmarks and expand from there. More often than not, precise messaging works far better than broad unsegmented.
Yes, it always helps when you can push "last time I tried that..." they see it more real. - good tip to keep helping people understand.
