Email Marketing Best Practices
Content
- Email marketing trends and consumer preferences
- Types of emails
- The importance of the correct frequency of email
- High frequency of email
- Low email frequency
- Confirm your audience's buying journey
- A fine line between consistency and spam
- Planning the pace of email marketing
- Conclusion
These days, email marketers of every kind know the importance of staying in touch with their target audience. To stay ahead of your interests, you should email your list regularly.
But what makes it "regular"?
How many emails would we consider too many, or too few?
Frequent email marketing requires a delicate balance, as your audience will quickly unsubscribe if they don't find your emails valuable. Sending with the correct frequency is critical to email marketing success.
Read on to find out the best email marketing frequency best practices and how to improve your email calendar.
Email marketing trends and consumer preferences
Email marketing has some pretty cool stats, like the popular ROI of $44 per dollar spent. Also, the majority of consumers across generations consider email to be the most personal marketing channel.
There is great potential to connect with your audience.
Given these benefits, many digital marketers assume that there are more good things to do when it comes to email marketing.
Indeed, according to the Digital Marketing Association’s 2020 Report, brands send an average of 26.8 emails per week, including automated emails and segmented campaigns.
Most of them send out marketing emails once or twice a week. Unfortunately, most of these emails don't offer value to consumers.
The DMA found that 85% of consumers believed that less than half of their marketing emails were "helpful" to them.
The higher the frequency of the email, the fewer messages appear to be relevant to the recipients. In addition to the fact that only 18% of marketers segment their campaigns, most consumers are likely to receive too many emails for their tastes.
But higher email frequency does not necessarily lead to higher unsubscribe rates, although several studies have shown that “too many emails” is the number one reason for unsubscribing.
Some people take this as further evidence that more is better. However, Keep in mind, though, that unsubscribing takes time. And with today's email clients, deleting emails is usually easier than unsubscribing.
As a marketer, your frequency should not depend on open rates or even low unsubscribe rates.
Rather, it should be based on the number of emails your target audience will actually read and click on.
Types of emails
To determine the ideal frequency for email marketing, you should consider the number and types of emails your audience receives. Consumers are more likely to open transactional emails than marketing messages.
Other automated emails, such as happy birthday messages and abandoned cart reminders.
And if your list sends targeted campaigns, you can easily take up a lot of space in your inbox.
Is this a good or bad thing?
This depends on your mix.
In general, targeted campaigns perform much better than surprise emails, because they match the interests of subscribers.
In fact, segmented emails to B2C industries, especially retail, can boost sales when frequency increases. This aligns with the DMA's finding that (65%) of consumers prefer emails that include discounts and special offers.
However, it is still important to consider diminishing returns from higher email frequency. With the increase in the volume of incoming mail:
Fewer recipients will open your emails.
Those who click on it are less likely to click.
So, it's true that your unsubscribe rate may not go up, but you also don't generate enough value to justify the cost of sending many emails.
The importance of the correct frequency of email
As we've seen, there is data that support higher email frequency and others that support lower rates, although the results ultimately depend on your industry and audience. You must also weigh the benefits and risks of both over-and under-serving.
High frequency of email
Positives :
It helps you to top off.
Also, provide more options for your audience to interact with your brand.
Ideal for retailers, content creators, and other businesses that benefit from batch consumption.
Negatives :
Increased risk of brand fatigue.
Increase the risk of annoying your audience.
It can be difficult to constantly develop new content for all sectors.
Low email frequency
Pros :
Submit highly personalized and creative content that may be of more value to your audience.
Easier to manage.
It's ideal for service-based firms that need to establish credibility with their customers.
The negatives :
Poor identification may cause recipients to unsubscribe or be flagged as spam. (Brand recognition is the number one reason consumers open a marketing email.)
Smaller inbox presence compared to other brands.
Also, the mix of email types for our brand affects the benefits you get or the risks you incur.
for example; Segmented daily campaigns may make sense for retailers, but not necessarily for productivity implementation.
All of these different factors are the reason why your email frequency should ultimately reflect your target audience's brand interests.
Confirm your audience's buying journey
Too many email marketers consider consumer subscriptions as a green light for sending all kinds of promotional content. This is a costly mistake.
While the main reason for unsubscribing is “too many emails”, the second very important reason is sending “ inappropriate information”.
If you get your listing from a significant traction opportunity, such as a free ebook, your emails should be of this same type of content.
Let's say you are a home design company and gain leads from your e-book “10 Amazing Ways to Upgrade Your Yard”.
These potential clients are clearly interested in living in the great outdoors, and may eventually be prepared to book your services.
But you may lose out on them if you sign them up for your weekly newsletter focused on kitchen design and home gyms.
The solution is to segment your list, then deliver the content at the appropriate frequency for each slide.
Those who offer their email for a discount probably don't want daily promotional emails, while the potential customers you generate from high-value freebies may prefer the weekly content that continues to provide value to them.
Either way, set this expectation when registering their email address, rather than making subscribers wait to see how many times you'll email them.
Knowing where your potential customers are coming from, whether it's a newsletter subscription form, a landing page, or something else, will help you confirm their interests through marketing emails.
A fine line between consistency and spam
Remember, consumers usually don't know the legal details of CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and other regulations.
They don't care if your emails aren't technically spam, because they chose to.
As far as they are concerned, any unwanted email is spam.
You must be careful with your sending rate because it is a double-edged sword;
If subscribers don't recognize your brand name (risk of reduced email repetition), they may mark it as spam.
However, they may also consider excessive emails to be spam, even if they know they are on the list.
Spam reports damage your reputation with your ISP, so you should be more concerned about that than your opt-out rate. As mentioned earlier, it will be easy to find the perfect email frequency, if you understand your target audience and their buying journey.
Planning the pace of email marketing
If we consider the frequency, mix of types, and timing of emails, they create the rhythm of email marketing.
The correct rhythm will maintain:
Differentiate your brand.
Providing value to recipients.
The dreaded unsubscribe prevents, or worse, the spam report.
And of course, it will support the goals of your email marketing campaign.
If you're unsure where to begin,
Start with a secure schedule of (4-5) emails per month. (This includes marketing emails only, not transactional emails.)
Make sure that each campaign will move to a part of your list and that no segment receives multiple campaigns.
- Next, watch your metrics. Look at how your open rate and click-through rates vary for the month.
If your metrics drop after the first two campaigns, you're probably sending too many emails. If you improve, your audience becomes more engaged and you may be able to send more emails, even to the point where the responses drop.
Getting the right result can take time, but by segmenting your audience and focusing on high-value content, you can get the better performance right away.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there is no magic number for email marketing frequency.
The optimal number of emails varies depending on; The brand, the audience, and each campaign in and of itself.
Your best entrepreneurial strategy is great for search and content. Know your target audience and what they want to see.
Next, use email marketing automation to improve the timing of your campaign and make sure the right leads receive emails that resonate with them. Test and adjust until you reach your step.
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