Marketers are always umming and erring over how often they should send an email, but unfortunately, there isn’t a straightforward answer to this.
Finding the right email sending frequency requires careful consideration depending on both your business and your audience. Here are some important factors to think about.
Segment frequency
Not all customers are the same, and that includes how often you should send to them. Generally speaking, your most engaged customers who are opening the majority of emails can achieve a higher frequency than others. And not sending for a few weeks to those inactive users can sometimes help to re-engage with them when you do send again.
Test with control groups
If you chop and change your frequency you will never get a true picture of how effective your chosen frequency is. Instead put a percentage of your audience into a controlled cell which get the different frequency, and after a period of time measure the change in behaviour – have those which got a higher frequency purchased more often from you?
Use your common sense
Sometimes you don’t need data to tell you what is right. Trust your instincts on how often you should be sending, after all you should know your customers well.
Don’t have a fixed frequency
Everyone likes a fixed frequency whether that be a case of sending every Tuesday and Thursday or so on. It makes it easy to plan and make sure you have constant resources available to hit your deadlines. But actually it isn’t that simple is it? There will be times when you have many valuable things to say and where you need to break out of the email patterns you have. Frequency should change over time according to what key messages you need to send, not whats easiest for you to manage.
Monitor unsubscribe rates across your top customers
Not all unsubscribes are equal. What you don’t want to happen is your best customers to start unsubscribing when frequency increases. Not only should you be looking at how many are dropping off the list, but what value these are to you.