As a MailChimp trainer I have found that the subject of email frequency often comes up, during training workshops and consultancy work. I am usually surprised by the infrequency of emails. In other words, most enterprises are not sending enough emails. This is usually because they don’t want to upset their customers.
“Don’t worry about that,” I say to them. “The majority of the people that you are emailing won’t even open your emails.”
For example, if you have a big list and are operating in a competitive marketplace, open rates can be as low as 5.2%. (The figure was provided by a client who has an extremely large list; it means that 94.8% of recipients are not opening their email campaigns).
For a small business with a few hundred or a few thousand subscribers, an open rate of about 20% is normal. Therefore, only 1 person in 5 is opening their email campaigns.
On this basis, you may like to consider increasing the frequency of emails. For example, once a quarter could become once a month – for a newsletter. Or once a month could become fortnightly. Bear in mind that many successful businesses send out emails to their customers every single day.
Different types of messages should be sent to different market segments. My newsletter is sent via MailChimp – you can join my list via the form below and I use Groups and Segments within MailChimp to divide up the list.
I addition to a newsletter, you may be sending other forms of messages i.e. special offers, event invitations, service updates, seasonal information – or special information just for paying customers.
Email marketing remains an effective way of increasing brand awareness, acquiring new customers and keeping them.
My advice is to send more often. At the same time, you should increase the value of your email content. But that is a story for another time, isn’t it?
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