What’s the frequency?
The standard audience question at every e-mail conference: “How often should I e-mail my list?” Sure, you want to come up with an optimum frequency, because e-mailing on a regular schedule is an excellent way to build rapport with readers and establish yourself as a trustworthy sender. Yet there are multiple reasons for sending e-mail messages more or less often. It all depends on the kind of e-mail service you provide for your recipients.
The Importance Of Frequent Emails
You will make more money if you communicate with your prospects and customers more often. Any type of communication, whether it’s through email, phone calls, one-on-one, direct mail or any other media you use, is about building relationships. By establishing frequent contact you accomplish several crucial factors to growing a business.
Frequency goes up, engagement goes down
A study from MailChimp has established that frequency and engagement are negatively correlated, meaning that as marketers send email more frequently their customers tend to engage less with each campaign.
The methodology was quite complex, but essentially it looked at the click rate for marketers that had substantially varied their send frequency over time.
The results showed that the campaign click rate decreased as email frequency increased.
How Often Should You Email?
Ask 10 people this question, and you’ll get 10 different responses. In fact you’re more likely to see a fistfight break out than you are seeing any agreement.
The reason is because the answer to this question is different for every business. Email as frequently as you can, as long as you can continue adding real, tangible value to your prospect or customer.
Complement Your Email Marketing Practices
For all its successes as a standalone marketing touch point, email sometimes is deployed best in conjunction with other campaigns and tactics. Buyers go through about 57% of the purchasing process before even talking to a sales person, according to CEB, so it is likely that at certain touch points, the process will be coordinated beyond email.
