Email marketing can be one of the most cost-effective ways for a business to generate leads, increase sales, and stay in front of existing customers. But one question comes up again and again: How often should you send marketing emails?
There isn’t one perfect email marketing frequency for every business. Send too few emails and subscribers may forget about you. Send too many irrelevant promotional emails and people may unsubscribe or simply stop paying attention.
For many small and medium-sized businesses, however, sending one marketing email per week is a good place to start.
Is Once a Week the Best Email Marketing Frequency?
For many service businesses, a weekly promotional email provides a good balance between visibility and frequency.
Companies offering services such as marketing, accounting, legal services, home improvement, chiropractic care, veterinary care, financial services, and consulting often aren’t selling something customers need every day. The objective is therefore to remain visible until the customer needs the service.
A weekly email can help keep your company’s name in front of prospects without bombarding them with messages.
But don’t make every email a sales pitch.
Mix promotional emails with useful content such as tips, blog posts, videos, FAQs, case studies, customer success stories, checklists, and industry information. Giving subscribers useful information provides another reason for them to continue opening your emails.
Can You Send Promotional Emails More Often?
Yes. Depending on the type of business, sending two or more emails per week may produce better results. One of my clients sends an email every day, including weekends, and gets excellent results.
Retailers and e-commerce businesses commonly email more frequently because they have new products, sales, discounts, and special offers to promote.
Service businesses can also experiment with a higher email frequency. For example, you might send an educational email early in the week and a more promotional message later.
The important thing is to measure the results.
Watch your open rates, click-through rates, website traffic, conversions, unsubscribe rates, and spam complaints. More importantly, track how many actual leads and sales your emails generate.
Is Once a Month Enough?
A monthly email newsletter is certainly better than no email marketing at all. However, once a month may not be frequent enough to keep your business top of mind.
Your subscribers are exposed to hundreds of competing marketing messages between your emails. If your company communicates with them only 12 times per year, they may barely remember joining your list.
Increasing your promotional email frequency can provide considerably more opportunities for subscribers to visit your website, request information, schedule an appointment, or make a purchase.
Don’t Let Unsubscribes Scare You
Some businesses send emails infrequently because they’re afraid people will unsubscribe.
Unsubscribes aren’t necessarily bad.
If someone has no interest in your company and never intends to purchase your products or services, keeping that person on your list provides little benefit. An engaged list of interested prospects and customers is generally more valuable than a larger list that ignores your messages.
Test Your Email Marketing Frequency
So, how often should you send promotional emails?
Start with one email per week and measure the results. Then consider testing two emails per week for a month or two.
Don’t evaluate the test based only on open rates. Measure clicks, inquiries, appointments, purchases, and revenue.
The ideal email marketing frequency is ultimately the frequency that produces the greatest return from your list without causing excessive unsubscribes, complaints, or audience fatigue.
The only way to discover that number is to test it.
Don’t have the time or manpower to do email marketing? Check out Real Web Marketing’s email marketing packages.
