Whilst there are few absolutes in email marketing there are a number of subjects which tend to have a consensus. You, like so many of us, might well think that if everyone, including the most successful companies, agree then you would be a little bit silly to go your own way without reason.

The accepted advice is that you should send emails as often as possible without encouraging your subscribers to tick the unsubscribe box. There seems little logic in not doing so. Further you have been told, including on these pages, not to clutter your email and to concentrate on just the one main offer. This is good, sound advice.

I have just received an e-mail from a company some fourteen weeks after the previous one. In another change, once I had paged past the offer there was a very chatty paragraph with links to an article on the company's website and also external links. You might think this is an unsuccessful email.

However, when I saw it in my inbox it was the first one I clicked on. Not only that, I read it all away through and then clicked on some links. I was a bit pushed for time so I moved the email to a folder to study later.

It has got to the stage where I now look forward to emails from this company as their offers are always worth considering and the links worth reading. Emails from other companies selling similar items tend to come on a monthly basis and, far from looking forward to them I occasionally delete them without opening. This is an email marketing nightmare of course.

It is a clever little method, one which has convinced me to open every one. Part of its attraction is that it is rather unusual but it has lessons for everyone.

The main one is: don't believe consensus. There is, it would appear, always another way. This is what email marketing is all about. Whilst I'm not suggesting fourteen weeks between emails is likely to increase everyone's ROI, a decrease in your frequency might. On top of that give your subscribers a reason to open your email.