Email marketing – what do frequency and deliverability mean?
If you are investing your time and money in email marketing it makes sense to understand the basics. Two terms to know and understand are email frequency and email deliverability.
Email frequency means how often you email to those prospects and customers who have opted in to your email subscriber list. Email deliverability is a measure of how often your emails actually get delivered to your subscribers, instead of going into a SPAM filter or never even reaching the subscriber’s inbox. Let’s take a look at each one of these.
Basics of email marketing – all about frequency
Books have been written about how often to email your subscriber list, how long your emails should be, and how to use compelling subject lines so that your emails get opened. While it would be useful to have a solid number so that you knew exactly how many emails to send out each week, the fact is that every business is different. Having helped hundreds of businesses clean up or set up their email marketing, I can guarantee you that most business owners do not email frequently enough. Click To Tweet
Let’s think about the purpose of using email marketing in your business. You want to keep top of mind to the people who have subscribed to your email list. You want to educate them, inform them about your business, and make offers of your products and services. If you do this only a few times a month you will get lost and fail to stay top of mind. You’ll waste time and money on a half-hearted email marketing system that doesn’t give you any results.
So, your business’s email frequency will probably need to be somewhere between 3 to 6 days a week. Once a month doesn’t work well. Weekly is sometimes effective, depending on the type of your business. In my experience with the business owners I’ve worked with, and for my own businesses, less than once a week is a total waste of your resources. On the other hand, I don’t believe it is effective to email more than once a day. From those clients I have had who have insisted on sending multiple emails a day I can tell you that 9 times out of 10 their subscriber list reacted negatively and started unsubscribing.
Sometimes I get the argument from a business owners that they are afraid to offend people by email every day or multiple times a week. Here’s what I notice.
- These tend to be the same business owners who are hesitant about marketing their businesses.
- Their mindset is not a business mindset, instead it is the mindset of someone who wants to please everyone and avoid conflict at all costs.
- They tend to forget that that their subscribers can unsubscribe if they don’t find the emails helpful.
- They are scared that people on their subscriber list will unsubscribe or block them. They forget that the goal is to have engaged subscribers who will be responsive to your offers. If a person doesn’t like your emails and doesn’t need what you are offering (or doesn’t want it) then that person is doing you a favor by getting off your list.
What’s your goal for your email marketing?
You can use email marketing to meet several goals. In the end, of course, you want to convert a percentage of the prospects on your email subscriber list to customers. In the process of doing that you can meet other goals.
- Do you want to grow a closer connection? If so, email often.
- Do you want to drive traffic to your website, perhaps to a blog post that is resource rich?
- Do you want to establish your expertise and credibility to your prospects?
- Do you want to increase your income by making offers in your emails?
TIP: If you have not been emailing your subscriber list very often then don't go from 1 email a month to 5 in one week. Click To Tweet Increase gradually, or you will end up with unsubscribes who don’t understand why they are hearing from you so often so suddenly. Consider an email series about a specific topic, with an offer at the end.
Let your subscribers know why your are emailing more often, too. Do a 5 day challenge that requires you to send a daily email about the challenge, as an example. Pay attention to your open rates over a six month period of time, and you might see a pattern of higher open rates with a certain email frequency. Overall, your email marketing system should help you build your business and help your subscribers keep you top of mind.
Basics of email marketing – all about deliverability of your emails
Many business owners who use email marketing don’t realize that only a small percentage of their emails end up in the email boxes they are sent to. Why is this?
- Some subscribers have a high setting for SPAM, so if your email address isn’t whitelisted by them your email will go to their SPAM folder.
- The email system you use to send out your emails may have a poor deliverability rate. Before you sign on with a particular system research to see what their deliverability rate is.
- Often your emails will get delivered based on your open rate. If you have a lot of dead weight in your subscriber list, people who never open your emails at all, your open rate is depressed and that impacts the number of emails from you that actually get delivered.
Make sure that you are using an email autoresponder service that is reputable. The company you use should always be working in the background to make sure that they are white listed with ISP (Internet Service Provider) companies and with email providers (like Gmail). Ask around – you’ll soon find out that some companies have a sticky reputation for their deliverability rates.
A good company will also put constraints on what you can send out that are designed to keep you complaint with SPAM laws. Remember, they want you to be successful, otherwise they won’t stay in business. You are their customer, and they are tied to your email marketing success.
Clean up your subscriber list at a minimum of once a year. Remove subscribers who have not opened a single email from you in 6 months to a year. You can set up a re-engagement strategy first, and some of your unresponsive subscribers may come back to life. Those that don’t respond to your re-engagement emails should be removed. (If you need help planning a re-engagement email strategy you can consult with me for an hour.)
This article about 7 ways to get your emails opened might be helpful for you, too.
Tips for deliverability and getting your emails opened
- Send emails regularly. This one thing alone will improve your deliverability and open rate
- Set expectations with your subscribers as to how often you will email them, and meet that expectation.
- Use foreshadowing in your email messages. Mention in one email when the reader can expect to hear from you again.
- Scrub your email subscriber list of dead weight.
Good email marketing practices will help you engage your prospects and convert some of them into your customers. Email marketing is one of the most effective ways you have to market your business. Understanding email marketing basics helps you build and maintain business success.
Do you have questions about email marketing? Please leave a comment here and I’ll answer you.
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