Fewer Emails, Fuller Rooms: The Chamber Email Makeover No One Saw Coming

When event numbers are low, the knee-jerk reaction tends to be to send more emails, blast out a desperate “last chance to register” social media post, or a combination of both.

Though these actions may result in a few more registrations, they rarely solve the larger problem, and they can also send an impression that the chamber is having trouble filling the seats. That unintentional impression can then plant a subtle seed in the minds of recipients that the chamber’s events aren’t worth attending.

If you send or post too many of these, your members may stop paying attention altogether. 

That’s where the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce was when I arrived. 

The Problem: Too Many Emails, Too Few Attendees

Our events team was under pressure to get bums in seats, and that pressure spilled over into marketing and comms. Social media posts, plug-ins to the newsletter, last-minute event email blasts — we threw everything at it. And still, registrations lagged.

We knew we were emailing too often. We knew that our comms were events-heavy. We knew that what we were doing wasn’t working. What we didn’t know was what would work.

We took a step back and dug into the data. We cross-referenced our email list with the list of past event attendees and found that out of 8,000+ subscribers, only 700 people had attended an event in the past three years. That’s less than 10%. Which meant over 90% of our email recipients were getting information that simply wasn’t relevant to them.

No amount of emailing was going to get that 90% to show up. And as we were continuing to push out promotions to everyone to try to get that 90% over the line, we were creating email fatigue for the 10% that actually cared about our events and wanted to come along. Our emails were becoming digital noise and our audience was tuning it out. Our open rates were on the decline and our click-through rates were abysmal.

The Pivot: Smarter Segmentation, Less Noise

We decided to stop treating our email list like a one-size-fits-all tool. Here’s what we changed:

1. Audience Segmentation

We stopped blasting every message to everyone. Instead, we segmented based on behavior and interest — including an “events-engaged” segment. We also created specific segments for advocacy-focused readers, newer members, and top-tier executives.

2. Targeted Content

For our general event promotion, we moved from a weekly email to a fortnightly (every two weeks) version. Instead of cramming in every event, we highlighted one featured event, included 2–3 brief promos, and added a link to the full calendar. Simple. Skimmable. Sharable.

Here’s the scary part – we shrunk that email list from 8000+ to around 1000, based on history of event attendance and email engagement.

We left the audience for our Chamber CEO update newsletter as is. But tweaked the content, prioritizing policy and advocacy updates, economic development news and other higher-level work. The only events featured in this newsletter were those that would be relevant to an audience interested in this type of content— like the Prime Minister’s Lunch. We omitted smaller networking mixers that weren’t relevant to that reader.

As time went on, we set up a process to allow members to select topics of interest, e.g. events, advocacy, regional business news, manufacturing updates, global trade. It was a little clunky, but we were able to automate this process to further refine our lists and ensure that we were putting relevant content in front of our audience. When new members joined, this was part of their onboarding.

3. Quality Over Quantity

We sent fewer emails overall — but the ones we sent performed better. More opens, more clicks, and most importantly, more registrations.

Within three months of implementing this strategy, our email open rates were consistently over 50%, click-throughs hit double digits for the first time and continued to rise.

And our events? They started selling out. As a matter of fact, our first big event following this change hit capacity after just the second email. For the first time, we had a waiting list, while the events team scrambled to find a bigger venue.

We did implement a few other tactics, but our audience segmentation method was where we saw the real turnaround.

• 1st promo – 60 days in advance of event (it had been 30 days or sometimes less).
• Offer an early bird rate (Pro Tip: don’t make this a discount, make your planned price the early bird rate, and bump it up after the early bird deadline).
• C-Suite Execs get personal invitation to relevant events from CEO prior to first mass promo.

Why It Worked: The Best Practices Behind the Results

What we did wasn’t magic. It was marketing best practice, applied with discipline.

Relevance Drives Engagement

Sending irrelevant emails damages your sender reputation and teaches your audience to tune you out. By focusing only on what each segment actually cared about, we earned back their attention.

Less Is More

Email fatigue is real. When your audience hears from you too often — especially with content that doesn’t resonate — you lose trust. We cut our frequency and saw engagement rise. Why? Because people knew that when we emailed, it was worth opening.

Make the Call to Action Easy

Our simplified event emails put one event front and center. No scrolling. No guesswork. Just “here’s the one event you need to know about right now” — and a clear link to learn more or register.

Know Your Metrics

That 700/8,000 data point changed everything for us. Too often, we make decisions based on assumptions. Know who’s actually engaging — and more importantly, who’s not — and let that shape your strategy.

Bravery Pays Off

It took some courage to hit pause on the frantic pace and try something different. Our events team was scared. But they knew that what we had been doing wasn’t working, so they stepped into their bravery and supported our experiment. Turns out, more noise was not the solution. Smarter marketing was.

I know you have a lot on your plate and audience segmentation may sound like one more “good idea” that you don’t have time for.

But it works. It is well worth the time you will invest in it, and it doesn’t have to be complicated. 

Our journey began with just a simple report of event attendees, cross-referenced with our email list. That got the ball rolling. And that single action, triggered a major shift that resulted in better event attendance and increased audience engagement with our non-event news and updates – enabling us to reinforce a stronger value proposition for our organization.

We kept at it, refining the process as we went. That’s something to remember. Our process wasn’t perfect, but we got something going, and kept improving it over time.

Start small, make it manageable, and you will see results. If you need help, get in touch.