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October 17, 2019 It’s an Information Overload Day this Sunday. It reminds us that too much information can have a negative impact on people’s happiness and productivity. Your business communication shouldn’t be the reason for such impact. So here are 4 ideas on how your business can commemorate the day of information overload. 

#1 Idea: Avoid Making Cold Calls 

A phone call is a great way to get all the person's attention. During a call, people stop doing whatever they were doing and concentrate on the conversation only. Marketers like to grab all the attention, but cold calls irritate people. Therefore, people avoid answering their phones, because they don’t want to pause their activity for an unknown number.

Bankmycell conducted a millennials survey to understand why they avoid picking up the phone.  Main answers were these: 

• 75% of respondents said they don’t answer because calls eat up their time; 
• 64% said they won’t answer if the person calling them is a “whiny” or “needy” type of person; 
• 55% of calls are avoided because the millennial is busy and needs to turn up to an event.

Survey respondents are people born between 1981 and 1996, but the results seem to be quite universal. Calls from unknown numbers can be seen as unnecessary information. If you want to celebrate Information Overload Day, cut your cold calls. 

#2 Idea: Make Sure Your Emails Are Not Spam

With the cold calls off the table, you can use emails and newsletters to inform about your business products, services or special offers. Even Medium states, that newsletters become popular again. The important part is to keep in mind the newsletters' quality and frequency.

The worst scenario for a newsletter is to be marked as spam. To avoid landing in spam inbox it is beneficial to check the people's opinion, what kind of emails they consider as spam. TechnologyAdvice did a survey on this and asked people “For what reasons have you marked a business’ emails as spam?” Top three answers were these:

• 8% - They emailed too often;
• 4% - I didn’t purposefully subscribe;
• 6% - They sent irrelevant content.

This survey gives you the best advice for this Information Overload Day. To make your newsletters welcome in people inboxes, do the exact opposite of what people dislike. Send your letters in moderate frequency. Contact only those who subscribed to your newsletter. And craft the content specifically for your audience. 

 

#3 Idea: Create Your Website In A Minimalistic Manner

You make calls and send emails when you want to reach people. But quite often people want to reach you and then they check your business website. When creating a website, remember that people usually have several tabs open at the same time. There are also emails and work chats going in the background. That’s a large flow of information. So it’s beneficial to have a minimalistic business website in order to maintain attention.

Balys Krikščiūnas, CEO of hosting provider Hostinger, suggests these steps for your business website on this Information Overload Day: 

• First, disable all the auto play content. People tend to instantly close the website that has a song or a video playing in the background;
• Check your website content. Avoid using professional slang when you can say the same thing in simpler way;
• Work on your buying process. It shouldn’t have too many steps. People should be able to provide all the necessary information within just a few clicks. 

“Another important part is the design of your website. It should be clean and minimalistic. This helps to highlight your content, products or services. And people won’t be distracted by it.” - says B. Krikščiūnas.

#4 Idea: #You #Don’t #Need #All #Those #Hashtags

As for social media, there is no single rulebook for dos and don’ts. But one thing can be really overwhelming for people - it’s the hashtag overload. Hashtags are a good tool to label your content. But too much of them make no sense at all. 

Marketing specialist Rebecca Kowalewicz warns in her Forbes article: “Forcing hashtags into a Facebook post, or any social post, takes away from the tone of the message or conversation.” On this Information Overload Day better concentrate on your business social media content quality rather than the number of hashtags. 

Your business is up there for people. Remember this when communicating with them. Your communication flow should be tailored to inform people, not overwhelm them. You should take good care of your communication all year round. But this Information Overload Day can be a great time to check new ideas and put them in use for your business.

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