Advice About Email Frequency to Your Lists

One question that often crops up with people just starting with email marketing is how often you should communicate with your list. This is a question borne from anxiety, as you do not wish to alienate the very audience you are trying to cultivate, but at the same time you would like to give them the most information possible about you and your products and services.

So while there’s not one standard answer, as all businesses have a different dynamic, know that once a month, or worse, a seasonal strategy for email isn’t going to cut it. They will most likely forget who you are, resent the intrusion, and see this as merely another obvious attempt to get into their wallet. (Which it is!)

What you should know about email frequency

Understand first that everyone’s email inbox is a battlefield: oodles of messages vying for consideration. To jump out from the herd, you have to follow a few rules.

If you desire to develop a long-term relationship with your lists, then you need to give, give, and give some more. Once they’ve come to the understanding that they can trust you, and know what you’re about, you’ll have the option to send the occasional sales pitch.

Educate, encourage, inspire and otherwise uplift your audience about your industry, and then about why specific products or services might be of benefit to them. Always understand the intent of a particular mailing, and resist the temptation to sell in every email.

With that being said and hopefully accomplished, it seems like a frequency of somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 times a week is ideal. Any more seems intrusive, and less not really enough. Also, if you mail every day (or more) coming up with vibrant, valuable content in your emails gets quite challenging.

The truth is that once you get rolling, your audience is going to show you how much is too much, you’ll be able to tell by metrics like open rates, unsubscribe, and God forbid, spam complaints. Pay attention to your audience, place yourself in their shoes, and you identify that optimum number of times to email.