Marketing Focus – How often to send email newsletters
This is a really tricky subject which we’ve dealt with before in previous email marketing posts. At the time I advised on the side of caution in terms of not sending too many emails and risk alienating your clients. We suggested that a monthly mail out works best for most businesses and I do in general still subscribe to this theory, however I recently read an interesting article which gives a different view on it.
According to this article, because we’re all checking emails all the time either at our computers, or on smart phones, people aren’t as worried about receiving multiple emails as long as they are interesting. In fact, research done by Getty Images suggests that higher frequency led to higher returns, more engagement and revenue per contact and it seems that it did not lead to more opt-outs. They say that the key to it is personalising the email through segmentation and understanding what the customers want and then mailing regularly to suit them.
I find this really interesting and there’s no doubt that there are some companies I am more receptive to receiving regular emails from. I think information sources like Marbella Family Fun, or companies with great products such as clothing retailers can get away with regular email shots because there’s always something new and fresh. This new intelligence definitely gives businesses more flexibility to mail if they believe they have interesting things to share on a more regular basis which is a good thing.
However, I do still think that for small businesses with limited man power and resources it’s not practical to send out weekly or even daily emails, we just don’t have the time! I also think that there aren’t many businesses that have enough to say, or are segmenting their data and monitoring their habits sufficiently to make it personalized enough to not bother people, so do be careful.
We’d be really interested to find out what you’ve experienced with email marketing and if you have any tips to share.