Email Newsletters – How Much is Too Much?
There is a fine line between sending just enough email newsletter contact to attract the attention of your subscribers and provide them a service that they will look forward to and enjoy, and spamming them to the point of virtual harassment. Some marketers believe that it’s okay to send out multiple daily mailings to their subscriber list. They believe that more emails means more opportunities which will result in higher conversions. Unfortunately, that’s not usually the case.
Today’s Internet users are much savvier than they were just a few years ago. They have subscribed to good mailers and bad mailers, and they are informed enough to know how to unsubscribe or block an address in their spam filter. Your goal here is not to be an aggressive salesperson, but more of a friendly source of information and special offerings for your subscribers.
What Do Your Subscribers Want?
This is the first question you need to ask yourself when you begin to formulate your email marketing strategy. What type of content will you be sending your readers? Do they want to see photos, videos, blog postings, articles, tutorials, newsletter or special discount deals? If your focus is fairly narrow, you can usually get away with sending out a single mailing to all of your newsletter subscribers. However, if your website offers a lot of different things, you may want to consider filtering your subscribers by interest and sending out different mailers to readers with different interests and needs.
How Much Can You Provide?
The next thing you need to think about is how much of the requested content you will be able to send out on a regular basis. If you only create new videos once a month, then your opt in mailing should only go out once each month. If you run special discounts or offer free shipping on specific items once a week, then you could easily send out your mailers once a week. The point is, if you promise weekly or monthly mailings, you need to be able to keep up with it. A consistent, reliable and useful mailer is something your subscribers will look forward to receiving.
How Often Do They Want To Receive It?
If you add fresh content to your website or blog on a daily basis and want to be able to provide that information to your readers regularly, there are a couple ways to go about it. You can let your readers select whether they want a once-weekly compilation of daily updates or if they want to receive updates each day as the new articles or other information are made available. Letting your readers decide what they want and how often they want to receive it will also help the subscriber feel in-control. Always include the option to change the subscription at the bottom of your daily mailer to a weekly version to avoid an increase in opt out subscriptions.
Testing The Waters
Once you have decided what type of content you’ll be sending, who you’ll be sending it to and often you’ll be sending it out, it’s time to test your strategy and see if it works. A good email marketing program will provide you with the stats you need to check open rates, opt outs and conversions. This will help you determine whether or not you are sending your mailers too frequently and if you need to make changes to your strategy.
A good metrics program can also help you test to find out if a certain day of the week is better for sending out your mailers than another. Some days will have better stats than others depending on a number of factors. Some marketers believe that you should never send a mailer out on a Monday when in-boxes are at their fullest from the weekend, while others firmly believe that first thing Tuesday morning converts best. Whatever schedule you decide on, make sure you are consistent and that you regularly check your metrics to be certain you are doing your best.
It is important to stay on top of all your marketing campaigns if you want to build a successful online business. For a free consultation and evaluation of your current email marketing strategies, contact New Bedford Internet at 508-415-8648.