how often should you email your listHow often should you email your list? This is a question I would get often when helping my clients with their email marketing. There’s really no quick and easy answer because it depends on several different factors that are personalized to you. However, I’ll try to break it down and help you learn how to answer this question for yourself.

How Often Should You Email Your List

When you’re ready to launch or build an email list, you need to know how often to email. It’s right up there after “What do I email my list about?” One question I get asked the most by my email clients is “How often do I email my list?”

The honest answer is: It depends.

For some clients, I recommend once a week. But for others, such as those with a small list, this might be too frequently. There are too many other factors to consider when making this decision. It should be part of an overall email marketing campaign that is focused on your specific goals.

You want to send emails often enough to keep your brand top of mind with the customer. But you don’t want to spam or people will unsubscribe or trash your emails. There’s a bit of a “sweet spot” in the middle and finding it takes art and practice.

Being afraid to email your list too often can lead to missed opportunities. However, you don’t want to email just for the sake of sending an email either. There needs to be a purpose to it.

Reasons to Email Your List

While it’s important to maintain consistency with your mailings, you also don’t want to email too much. What constitutes “too much”? Again, it all depends. Emailing when you have nothing of quality to offer falls under the “too much” category. If you try to email so frequently you cannot keep up with the pace and flow, you might drop in quality, too. This can lead to unsubscribes and mailings being marked as spam. Email when you have a reason to email.

What are some good reasons to email your list?

  • You have a new product or service launching
  • There’s a discount or a sale happening
  • You have a change or addition in staff members
  • A welcome email when they subscribe
  • To deliver valuable info from your niche
  • When you have advice that pertains to your topic/niche
  • To keep your promises (when you’ve said you will update, etc)

Every business is different so what works for one company may not be adequate for another. For example, some companies send daily emails while others may only send them out once a month. Your goal is to discover where your business ranks between these two extremes and that will help you determine email frequency.

Here are a few tips to help you determine how often to email your list:

You can make money with your email list, once you learn how to use it effectively. Consider these ideas to help you find that email frequency sweet spot.

Take a close look at your business

The type of business you have will play a major role in how many emails is appropriate for you to send out. For example, do you have a large business that offers customers special deals and discounts on different products every week? If so, then weekly emails would be practical to ensure your audience is aware of your special deals. However, if your specials run for a month at a time, then once or twice a month may be more appropriate.

Determine your marketing goal

All emails sent to subscribers must have a purpose. Otherwise, you’re just spamming your audience. For example, you can use email marketing to create brand awareness, generate revenue, provide information about your niche, promote your products or address common questions and concerns about the products or services you provide. Once you determine which type of emails to send, it will be easier to determine how often to send them.

Check out the competition

If you’re new to email marketing, a good way to get started is by taking a close look at what your competitors and other leaders in your industry are doing. How often do they send out emails on average and how well do their subscribers respond to this number? Use this information as a guide to help you customize your own email schedule.

Ask your subscribers what they want

One excellent way to determine the right number of emails to send out is by asking your audience how many they would be comfortable receiving weekly or throughout the month. Adding this question to the opt-in form is a great idea that will get results. You can also start a poll, conduct a survey or send out questionnaires to see how your target audience responds to the question.

Monitor your results

Once your marketing campaign is underway, it’s important to monitor your results. Keep up with how many people unsubscribe along with the reasons they give for no longer wanting to receive emails from you. Record your ROI and click rates along with any other information you can gather. All of this information will help you determine if you need to cut back on your emails or send out more. It really is a trial and error type thing. For example, if the main reason people unsubscribe is too many emails, then you know it’s time to cut back.

Divide your subscribers into groups

If you’re still uncertain of how many emails to send out each month, divide your subscribers into groups. Send out a different number of emails to each group every month and monitor the results for a while. Pay close attention to why people unsubscribe to see if any of them complain about receiving too many or too few emails and adjust your schedule accordingly.

Finding your Own Answers

As you can see, there is no one specific answer to the question of how often should you email your list. The answer is different for everyone because every business is unique. What works for one may not work at all for another company. However, using the information above will help you come up with a strategy that works well for your business.

Once you’ve determined how many email correspondences is a good number for your business, stay consistent. Constantly changing your mailing frequency will have a negative effect on your business. If your audience expects one email a week, that’s what you need to give them. If you start skipping one every now and then or if you send out three or four emails in a week, your subscribers may view you as being unreliable and decide to unsubscribe.

Upgrade and Grow

As your business grows, so will your needs and there will be times when you’ll need to make changes. Therefore, it’s important to continue tracking and monitoring your email campaign to determine if your current plan is working or if it needs a little adjusting. You may do some A/B split testing and record your results to get more data and see what is working best.

If you determine that you do need to increase or decrease email frequency, do so gradually. This way, it won’t be a shock to your subscribers and they will have time to get used to the changes. However, if you’re losing a lot of subscribers due to sending out an excessive amount of emails monthly, you can cut back now and test your list. Get a feel for what they like to hear from you and when.

How Often Should You Email Your List Conclusions

As you can see, finding that sweet spot in emailing will take some time and practice on your end. Assess your current list, how big it is, how engaged it is, and other details to help you feel it out. These ideas can help you when planning your email content going forward. With them, you can implement an email marketing strategy, rather than posting at random here and there.

With a strategy, you might most more often, or less often. Or you might post new types of content or add some interactive challenges or videos to your mailings. Whatever you do, remember that this is YOUR piece of internet real estate. Make the most of it, and don’t forget to love what you do!