Email Frequency

[webgeek]

For those of you who do take the time to email market to your clients (and prospects), how often are you contacting them?

In several projects of the not too distant past, we relied on 2x a month contact, using one as an editorial piece with useful content and no obvious sales pitches. The second one was a pure sales flyer that tried to sell stuff.

The reason for this was simple - TESTING.

In cases where we contacted people more often than that, the unsubscribe rate was high - we burned through the list, charring it as we went.

In cases where we contacted people less frequently, the open rate was low - people didn't recognise the senders as having given them real value, so they were more inclined to glance and think spam and not bother.

Some industries are very different from these above. Groupon can get away with daily deals, as can some others in providing vouchers, discounts, deals. But thus far, I've not found any who I'd recommend less than 2x a month contact.

How about you?

 

[Strent12]

It depends on what industry you're in but having people leave your email list is not a bad thing. You'd rather weed out people who'll never buy from you and not have to pay for them as your list grows. I believe after a certain amount of subscribers mailchimp start charging for example.

You want the list filled with engaged subscribers who have a higher likelihood of buying.

 

[MOIC]

We don't currently use email marketing, It's more word of mouth in our industry.

If I was using an email marketing campaign, I would agree that 2 per month is about right.

As long as content is refreshed and a new message/product is the key point.

 

[Nochexman]

With prospects I would expect to mail more frequently in order to build some awareness and interest in what we are offering.

 

[TheoNe]

We send out two direct mailings a month to our subscriber list - but we never include any sales pitches, discounts or offers. We send out high quality, informative content and always include a 'call-to-action' or CTA button per email. Those subscribers you contact will only spend a few seconds reading your email before deciding to continue on reading or deleting it. By making it very apparent what you want them to do, you will experience a significant improvement in the performance of your direct mail campaigns over time.

I hope this helps.