A December 2007 study by Jupiter Research indicates that 40% of consumers think the emails they receive come too often. How often is too often? Unfortunately, for those of you in search of simple answers, it depends. Consumers will tolerate almost any frequency as long as the email content you deliver meets their expectations of value and relevance. I know of businesses who send an email to everyone on their list twice per day with great success, and others who only send one email per year with decent results.
You could determine your audience’s frequency tolerance by trial and error, or by sending a survey and asking your audience how often they would like email from you, but that just wouldn’t be clever enough for a seasoned marketer like you who is used to reading this blog. Here are some ways you can estimate your optimum email frequency and come closer to hitting your audience’s expectations before you start sending.
- Use frequency dependent content to justify your desired frequency. For example, a coffee shop that has a need to deliver information daily might include a weather report in every email along with a coupon that features the beverage matching the weather (i.e. snow = coupon for a latte, sun = coupon for an iced coffee). Since weather is a daily event, a daily weather report reinforces the daily frequency and allows the coffee shop to capture more interest.
- Match your frequency to your average buying cycle. For example, a hair salon could send an email every 30 days if their audience is likely to need a haircut about every 30 days. They could also divide their list into 4 parts and send an email to a different part every week to achieve a 30-day frequency while accounting for people who are in different stages of the 30-day cycle. If your customers have a buying cycle that is months or years long, you’ll need to keep track of recent purchases so you don’t ask someone to buy right after a sale. For example, if your average customer needs to buy your products or services only once per year, exclude customers who made purchases during the previous 6-8 months from receiving promotions and offers, and deliver relationship-building content instead. When your customers are within 4-6 months of their next purchase, start sending more promotional information and increase your frequency.
- Scale down your content. Shorter, more concise emails work better than longer emails almost without exception. If you have a sense for the amount of content you need to deliver in order to be effective in selling your products and services, divide your content into equal parts and send a series of emails instead of one long email that repeats the same content. For example, a computer retailer might send a single article describing how to use a single feature of the new Macintosh line in every email, until all the features have been described. If you use this technique, make sure you include a link to a list of all the features so someone who is ready to buy can get all the information they need. Those who are not ready to buy should be well informed when the are ready, because they have received several concise emails over time.
- Use a frequency planner to help predict your audience’s reaction. A frequency planner is a spreadsheet calendar that allows you to mark down all the emails you plan to send so you can visualize the amount of content your audience is going to receive. If your content and frequency looks overwhelming on the planner, it’s probably going to be overwhelming to your audience. You can download a free frequency planner on my email marketing tools page.
No matter what your frequency plan entails, remember that frequency and content are interdependent. Shorter emails always have a better chance of being acceptable at higher frequencies than longer emails. It’s also important to check your tracking reports for signs of over-communication. If your unsubscribe requests are increasing or your click-through rates are declining, it could be a sign that your frequency estimate isn’t accurate. Making adjustments and refining your strategy are part of every marketing plan, no matter how cleverly you begin.
John Arnold is the author of Email Marketing for Dummies and the Director of Constant Contact’s local expert program.
(I’ve been getting a lot of requests for creative ways to use the specific functionality of Constant Contact, so I have decided to post periodic tips for using the product in creative ways.)
Consumers want emails with short, concise information that’s easy to scan. Businesses want to deliver as much content as possible to differentiate themselves and educate customers and prospects. No wonder the email inbox is such a hostile environment! This tip helps you to make your emails more concise while giving your prospects and customers access to all your information using Constant Contact’s new Archive Feature.
Using the archive feature allows you to ’save’ your emails and create a link to them so the public can access them from your website. Archiving your emails is a great idea for at least 3 reasons:
- Archiving allows your website visitors to get to know your business through your email content without being a subscriber to your email list.
- Archiving allows your email subscribers to find information sent to them via email after they have deleted it or when their email is being blocked or filtered unintentionally.
- Archived emails add content to your website and improve your search engine rankings (especially when your emails contain good content and key words).
Here’s how you can use this exciting new feature to keep your emails more concise while still delivering lots of important information:
- Create a long version of your email. Include entire full-length articles, images, product descriptions, coupons, or anything else you want your audience to see. You’re not going to send this version to your audience (at least not directly to their inboxes) so make it as long as you want it to be.
- Save the email as a draft, then archive it.
- Create a short version of the same email by copying the long version and renaming it “emailname_short_date.” This is the version you’re going to send out.
- Change the content of your new short version by replacing the long full-length articles and product descriptions with short summaries, bullets, or the first few sentences of each section or article. The shorter version will be easier for your audience to scan and decide whether they are interested enough to read your email’s long version.
- Type “Read Entire Article…” or “Read All…” beneath your short version’s article summaries. Highlight the text and click the link creation tool to make the text into a link.
- Copy the archive link that points to the long version of your newsletter and paste it in to the link field in the link creation tool. (You can access the archive link by clicking the URL link next to the long version of your email on your archive manager page). Your short version is now linked to your long version so your audience can access the long version if they show interest in a particular section or article.
- Repeat this process until all of your summary articles or sections have a link to the long version of your email, then test the email and send it out.
If you have multiple articles in your long version and some of the articles begin beneath the bottom of the computer screen on your archive page, you might want to name the links in your short version appropriately so that you prompt your audience to scroll down after they click. For example, a link in the short version of an email newsletter with three articles might read “See Full Version (Scroll to Article 3)” under the article 3 summary.
For more help with Constant Contact’s archive feature, check out the Constant Contact Support Blog or log in to your account and click “get help” to search the answers database.
John Arnold is the author of Email Marketing for Dummies and the Director of Constant Contact’s local experts program.
Incoming and outgoing phone calls and personal meetings are great places to collect email addresses and permission to send when you use the right language. When someone calls your business or meets you in person to ask about your products or services, answer their question and then use a turnaround line to ask them for their email address. A turnaround line is a short phrase that changes the subject of the conversation without sounding like you are interrupting the flow of the conversation.
Use the following examples of turnaround lines as a guide to making your phone calls and personal meetings a source of new email list subscribers.
- “By the way…” Use this turnaround line toward the end of a conversation to ask for an email list subscription. For example, a retail store that receives a call asking how late the store is open might end the call by saying, “By the way… if you would be so kind as to share your email address with us, we can notify you when we have extended hours and special offers. It that ok?”
- “That’s a great question…” Use this turnaround line when someone asks you a question that indicates interest in a product or service. For example, when a prospective client asks a consultant whether he or she knows anything about mobile email marketing, the consultant might answer that question by saying, “That’s a great question… would you like to be on my mobile marketing tips email list?” After the prospective client answers yes or no, the consultant can then answer the question directly.
- “That reminds me…” Use this turnaround line when someone makes a statement that relates to one of your products or services. For example, when someone calls tech support and states that they are having trouble with their product, the support representative might say, “That reminds me… would you like to receive our free monthly tech-tips newsletter?”
Creating your own personalized turnaround lines is easy. Just listen for them in your regular conversations and apply them to your phone calls and meetings. Make sure you also train your employees to use turnaround lines on the phone, in emails, and in personal conversations to keep the permission-based email addresses moving in to your email database.
John Arnold is the author of Email Marketing for Dummies and the Director of Constant Contact’s local expert program.
