How often should I mail to my subscribers?

by Joey Flores on October 23, 2009

How often you should mail to your audience is a tricky question. Every audience is different, but more importantly, every user is different (unless your users are Agent Smith from The Matrix, or Oompa Loompas, but I hear that’s a terrible market right now). I’m sure there are a million studies you can check out that will tell you to mail on a particular day of the week at a particular time, and so on. But, the reality is, it will vary from industry to industry, and for so many other reasons. The one sure answer is, ask your users.

When your users register or subscribe to receive announcements, specials or information from you, ask them, “How often would you like to hear about our top deals and special offers? Every time; Once a Week; Once a Month; etc.” Then, you can segment your list and mail appropriately. This might be extra work and, depending on your resources and the size and value you derive from your list, cost prohibitive, but your users will surely appreciate getting this information in the way that they prefer, and they know better than any study what their schedule is like and how important your information is to them.

Other than that, the best way to test this is to try different things and monitor your unsubscribe requests, your open rates, your click through rates and your sales. If you have a large enough database, you should select a test pool for this, as opposed to trying it with everyone. You’ll need to make sure that your system is setup to track all of these things and that your tests are consistent – that you’re not changing too many variables from test to test. Then, you’ll need formulas for analyzing your ROI per mailing, per user, with the understanding that each unsubscribe reduces this number for future mailings.

There is a lot to optimizing your campaigns in any channel. At the end of the day, it’s about creating a great user experience, maximizing ROI and your opportunity cost, and making intelligent decisions based on real data.

Joey Flores
Managing Partner
joey@StartupArmy.com | http://www.linkedin.com/in/joeyjflores
Startup Army | www.StartupArmy.com
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