Email Marketing - How often should we send to our list?

The low unit cost of email marketing can make it tempting to send to your list a bit too often. A good response rate can lead you down the path of 'if one mailing a month works that well, won't four mailings generate four times the response?' After all, we've all heard the adage that people have to be exposed to your brand seven times before they will buy. Before scaling up the frequency, it's worth asking yourself a few questions first.

- What are the recipients' expectations? If you've signed people up to your newsletter on the understanding that it's monthly, they won't enjoy being bombarded every week. Being emailed too often is one of the most frequently-cited reasons why people unsubscribe.
- Is it appropriate? If your business, or that of your recipients, replies on weekly or daily changes which are crucial to communicate, then more frequent communication may be desirable. If you've nothing new to day, best to keep shtum.
- Can you keep it up? Consistency is the key in building loyalty by email. To begin with, putting together an email campaign is a novelty. It can very soon become a chore - unless you've planned ahead and have the resources to put together compelling email communications, month after month.
- Are you doing this in order to build long-term loyalty and repeat business, or are you after a quick sales hit? Beware of killing the golden goose.

Organisations with limited resources, or who have leapt into email marketing without a plan, may have the opposite problem - sending too infrequently. You've probably been in the end of it yourself - when you visit an interesting web page, you sign up for their email news, and then you hear nothing for months. There can be various reasons for this. Perhaps they're collecting email addresses in the expectation that they will get an email newsletter going at some point in the future. Perhaps they are short-staffed or very busy and the newsletter is a low priority. Or maybe they are waiting until they have something really big to announce. To get someone's permission to email them is a great privilege - it's madness not to make the most of it.

There are two problems with sending too infrequently - people have short memories when it comes to email, and email addresses have short life-spans. If people don't hear from you in six months or more, it's likely they will have forgotten they ever gave permission. At best, email silence may be interpreted as a sign of disorganisation, At worst, you may be accused of spamming.

For some people email might be the only contact with your brand, so it's worth considering the impression you're giving. I suggest the following:
- before you start asking for people's email addresses, decide how they will be used. What will you be sending, and how often? It's a good idea to state this at the point of sign up, so that people know what to expect
- stick to your promised schedule. This is easier to do if you are realistic about the resources needed and if you can give your email communications a fixed priority.
- don't leave it longer than 3 months between mailings. Any more than this and you are in danger of reduced deliverability and recipient apathy. It's better to send something every month rather than nothing for six months, even if you feel you haven't got much to say.

Getting into a habit of regular email communication with customers and prospects is a good long term strategy. It builds familiarity, consistency and, ultimately, trust.

This article first appeared in Enewsworks eTips newsletter.
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