One of the most common questions we get asked here at RedCappi is “How often should we email our subscribers?”. In today’s blog post, we’re going to help you answer this question, and give you practical tips for increasing open and click rates simply through optimizing your sending frequency.
Keep in mind that the goal of your email marketing strategy is to provide valuable content that builds trust, and that ultimately drives sales. And part of building that trust is delivering content on a predictable and consistent schedule.
Sending emails too frequently or not frequently enough can have unintended consequences; not just in terms of your list health, but also in terms of your business goals and outcomes. As you can see, this is no small question!
The Optimal Email Sending Frequency
If you’ve been trying to figure out the ideal sending frequency, the heading of this section probably got you a little excited.
So without further ado, here is the quick answer to the ‘optimal’ sending frequency: Only YOU are the expert, and only YOU can determine the optimal sending frequency!
The truth is, if we actually knew of a one-size-fits-all, ‘perfect’ frequency, we’d be rich!
Don’t get us wrong: We’re not saying there is no optimal sending frequency for your business. We’re just saying that wecan’t be the ones to tell you what it is. And that’s because there are so many factors that can come into play depending on your business and your audience…and this is information that only you have access to.
Only you can know how the routines, habits and needs of your specific target audience impact sending frequency. For instance, how might your sending frequency differ if your audience is largely made up of CEO’s, versus stay-at-home moms? Or residential plumbing customers versus digital marketing professionals?
In light of this, the purpose of this post isn’t to give you a ‘magic’ number, but rather to show you exactly how to figure out your own optimal sending frequency.
Step 1: Use Your Current Campaign Stats to Come up with a Hypothesis
This step will obviously only work if you already have a history of trying out different sending frequencies.
If you haven’t, move on to step 2!
One of the best starting points for determining your optimal sending frequency is to examine your past campaign stats. By comparing stats for campaigns you’ve sent out in the past with varying frequencies, you can get a basic idea of the impact of frequency on various metrics.
The key metrics you’ll want to look at include:
- Open rates
- Click-through rates
- Unsubscribes
- Complaints
It’s important to keep in mind that this is only a preliminary step;that what you discover here will help you come up with questions for further examination. Questions like:
- Do weekly emails seem to receive higher open rates than daily ones?
- Do complaints appear to increase as the time between emails increases?
- At what sending frequency do click rates tend to hit their ‘sweet spot’?
Depending on what you find in this preliminary examination of your campaigns stats, you should be able to come up with a hypothesis: for instance, weekly emails result in the highest levels of open and click rates.
Any good hypothesis is based on evidence (even limited evidence), and will give you something to prove or disprove in step 2.
Step 2: Use Split Testing to Determine Optimal Sending Frequency
Now that you have a hypothesis, it’s time to put it to the test.
Start by segmenting your list or a portion of your list, if you haven’t already. Be sure to keep groups as uniform as possible. For instance, there should be no major distinguishing factors or characteristics between the groups. This will help ensure your results are as accurate as possible.