Archive for March, 2008
How Often Should You Send Emails to Your List?
This is a question whose answer changes depending on who you ask. The problem is, no one ever asks the people on the lists. How often should you send email to your list? My personal experience indicates that for my company, 3 to 4 weeks in between emails is the sweet spot. It’s just long enough to keep our list from being inundated with email from us but short enough a time period so that our mailing list doesn’t forget who we are.
In this article, the answer, according to Stefan Pollard of the ClickZ Network is “What do you have to say that your recipients will want to hear?” I would further ask “Can it wait until the next scheduled send?”
If that was a rhetorical question then I couldn’t agree more, Stefan.
In the article, Stefan also suggests that an important part of establishing a good relationship with your email subscribers is to be up front about:
1. What the subscriber will receive
2. How often to expect it
He cautions that you should never stray too far from the subject and frequency you indicated when they signed up as recipients can be quick to mark you as spam if you do. Move away from the using checkboxes with “Sign Up For Our Newsletter” and “Please send me periodic information about XYZ Corp Specials”
Honestly, when was the last time you checked boxes that looked like that?
Anyway, I won’t spoil the rest of the article for you. Check it out here.
Until next time…
Email Frequency Spam Filter
The Filter You Probably Didn’t Know You Tripped
Spam Filters are becoming increasingly sophisticated these days and I thought I might write a post about a “silent” spam filter you may or may not know about. It probably has an official name but for the sake of this post, I’ll call it the “Frequency Filter” and no matter how many times you test your email in a spam checker, this is one filter you won’t know you trip until it’s probably too late.
Near as I can figure, the way it works is that if you send similar copies of a commercial email from the same email address to a recipient within a specified threshold time period (I’m sure it differs from client to client, provider to provider), the email(s) after your first email could get flagged as spam or junk.
This was likely a response to emails from spammers that would use auto-responders to send dozens of automated email messages to recipients in rapid succession each one reminding the recipient of a previous email with a limited time offer. The first one might pass if it looks enough like a legitimate email but subsequent ones get tossed in the Junk Mail Folder no matter how legitimate they appear. That’s bad news for you if you have a sizeable list you’ve worked hard to build.
If you take a moment to think about it, in a list of say 1000 people, to whom you sent 2 emails a week and each time 100 people’s clients or providers on your list flag your email as spam, it would only take 5 weeks before your list is completely useless or “Burned Out”
The take-away here is that no matter how valuable or spectacular you think your offer may be, sending it multiple times to a single address could eventually reduce the effectiveness of your efforts to zero. Keep that in mind the next time you decide “remind” your recipients of an email you sent yesterday. I came across this one by accident because I was sending test copies of an email to a client for approval so no harm was done. You, on the other hand may not be so fortunate so I hope you take my advice and watch how often you send. To stay on the safe side I would recommend at the absolute MOST sending 1 email per month.
If you want some more information about email marketing for your business, have a look at our Email Marketing page here. Information on How Email Laws Affect Business.
Happy Emailing!
