Question of the day: If you are an email publisher, should you send "We're on vacation this week, but you'll get a regular issue next week" announcements to your list?

Seems like everybody does. This week Sherpa is on break. (Well, ok I'm still working, and working late I might add, but we're not actually publishing which is a HUGE load off so it sorta feels like I'm at the beach.) When I went to send out those vacation emails to subscribers I stopped in my tracks, struck by a thought: People hate having to wade through lots of useless email. A vacation message is pretty useless... So would my subscribers feel sorta like I spammed them 'cause it's not a regular useful issue?

And anyway, maybe those 'vacation' messages are more about the publisher's ego thinking, "Oh my God they are going to miss my newsletter and worry where I am!!!" than they are about in-box clogged reality.

So this week, you'll note (if you are a subscriber to any one of our 6 newsletters at MarketingSherpa.com) that no vacation messages are being sent unless I also have a useful news tip to make them worthwhile.