I am asked how often you should email all the time. The correct answer is; “It depends.” It depends on many factors too numerous to address in this article, however there I have found a happy medium with my lists that works pretty well. I have adopted many of these email marketing practices over time. The best way to really know how often you should email your list is to test.

For those who do have the time or expertise to test; setting expectations and list segmentation are very good places to start. Here some recommendations to get your started based on my actual experience from sending millions of emails over the last 9 years.

I recommend mailing at least weekly. These emails should contain mostly training, resources, tips, tricks etc. An easy way to do this is to post to your blog once a week and publish your weekly blog posts to your email. This main content feed nurtures your relationship with your subscribers over time.

Then, for periodic campaigns, create a sub-list that subscribers can opt-in and hear about a certain special offer, training track or topic.

Email your main list about the offer during weekly communications, you can also do a small 3-5 day campaign to entice your main list to opt-in but don’t bombard your main list with your special offer emails. Reserve those communications for your sub-list.

Bonus Tip: During Weekly emails include content teasers from your sub-campaigns and make offer to opt-in, just be respectful of their attention and be sure you have valuable content.

Bonus Tip: Make a welcome sequence for your sub-list that indoctrinates or brings up to speed all new subscribers, shares content that has been published to date (along the campaign timeline).

Nine Tips to Consider When Setting Up An Email Strategy

TIP#1 – Set Expectations by offering value over time. Deliver value through the content of the messages that you’ll be sending. Tell subscribers how often they will hear from you and they get, be as specific as you can, not “Sign up for my newsletter” instead “Receive weekly Golf Tips that Are Guaranteed to keep you out of the woods, drive farther and look sharp on the course!”

TIP#2 – Create welcome message(s). Deliver immediate value and create the conversation when they’re listening, and the benefit will be huge.

TIP#3 – Segment your lists. Breaking lists into groups of similar recipients is one of the best ways to improve engagement.

• Main content or nurture list that drips weekly valuable training, tips, resources etc,
• Campaign specific list for specific campaigns. Have subscribers opt-in to hear about your offer, include training and valuable content or gift to entice subs and give value over the duration of the campaign. See Jeff Walkers Product Launch Formula
• Weed out inactive subscribers. Make a campaign to reactivate them or drop them.

TIP#4 – Offer 2 Frequency options. Give subscribers the option to sign up for daily emails, weekly or monthly ones. However, you have to make sure that you do stay in touch with your subscribers regularly enough that they don’t forget who you are. This can happen with lists of any age – a lapse of several months between messages can definitely result in unsubscribes when people get a message out of the blue.

TIP#5 – Keep tabs on your list. If it has been a few weeks since they’ve heard from you, try sending them something in order to keep in touch. Note that this doesn’t have to be elaborate – look for content on your site, your books, articles, recent blog posts, or the like.

TIP#6 – Branding. Use consistent branding e.g. from name, from email and subject lines that are recognizable. Make sure your body and major parts of your email are consistent.

TIP#7 – Test and then test some more. This is the one that hardly anyone ever does, except the gurus who are making a killing. Check your open-rates, click through rates and unsubscribe rates. Make one adjustment at a time and test again.

TIP# 8 – ASK THEM SOMETHING! One of the most powerful techniques to effective (email) marketing is to ask questions. See my article on surveys http://paulguyon.com/85/ask-and-you-shall-receive-the-most-powerful-marketing-question-you-could-ever-ask-part-1/

TIP#9 – Be Consistent! I should have made this tip #1. Keep to your schedule and don’t violate your subscribers trust.

I’d love to hear how often you email? Leave a comment and let me know what works for your list.