One of the most pressing questions for an e-marketer is "how much is too much?" in regards to sending e-communications.   One measurable factor that certainly helps in this debate is your reports and analytics.  If you begin to see steadily declining open and click rates, or worse an increasing number of opt-outs, you may want to look at your frequency and see if you are over – or even, conversely, depending on your frequency, under – communicating. 

In addition, there are several other factors that you can consider, such as the audience to whom the email campaign is being sent and what the intention of your message is.  If you are sending purely promotional messages to prospects, once a week is probably overkill. But if you send a weekly update on new product releases to your third-party sales channels, that is probably much more acceptable. Important and time sensitive news and information can be sent on a daily basis provided the audience knows they are subscribing to a daily newsletter and that they highly value the information. 

Here are some "rules of thumb" that we have put together that may help you figure out just how much is too much or too little for your email campaigns.

How Often Does Your Audience Expect To Hear From You?

Because the nature of your relationship with the different segments of your audiences varies, each of these groups will expect to hear from you at different intervals.   

1.      Customers.  The frequency you can e-mail customers is higher than many other audiences.  While you don’t want to overwhelm them with non-critical messages, customers tend to expect e-mails from you with policy and procedure information as well as product and service updates.  In addition, they welcome news of any special offers or product promotions that you can provide them. 

2.      Prospects.   Prospects are a little trickier because you have not developed a full relationship with them yet.  You want to provide them with meaningful information that may someday turn them into a customer, but you don’t want to make a pest of yourself or your company. 

3.      Partners and Sales Channels.  This group is similar to customers, in that you have an existing relationship with them and they expect you to keep them informed. Again, you don’t want to inundate them with fluffy, non-informative messages, but you can communicate with them quite frequently. 

In addition to the type of audience that you’re mailing to, the kind of message also contributes to the frequency of your e-mail communications.

• Regular e-newsletters.  In most cases, once or twice a month is a suitable schedule for e-newsletters.  These vehicles gives you an opportunity to add value to your customer relationships and to continue to keep prospects interested in your company, products, and services in an informative, value-add way. If your publication includes timely news and information, a daily mailing can also be very successful. 
• Product updates and new releases.   This information can be highly valuable to the right audience. Monthly communication is the most common standard.  However, your product schedule will really dictate this, and weekly or quarterly schedules may be more appropriate.   These e-communications typically only go to customers, although you may want to provide the option for prospects to join this mailing list since sometimes new products or features can influence people's buying decisions. 
• Event announcements and invitations.  If you have training sessions, speaker appearances, webinars, seminars, or other events that you want people to attend and/or register for, you can send this type of communication out whenever it's appropriate.  A reminder e-communication before the event is also appropriate.  If you have several events occuring within the same time period, send on e-mail containing information about all of the events. 
• Company announcements.  You can use the umbrella of a press release to announce significant achievements.  In most cases, this might be better addressed in a monthly e-newsletter, but if there is something that is ground breaking or very timely, you may want to create a separate e-communication.
• Personnel changes.  If you have a customer contact that changes – such as a new support person and/or a new sales rep – where the contact communicates with an important customer on a regular or frequent basis, you may want to e-mail an introductory letter when the change occurs.

Make Your Communications Stand Out

If you send your audiences multiple communications, each of a different nature, it's important to distinguish one from the other.  With messages that look and feel different, your audiences will be able to perceive the uniqueness of each communication and take the appropriate time to read the message. 

eNews Builder provides you with the ability to create a new template for each type of communication you send out.  With this capability, you can develop one distinguishable format for your e-newsletter, another for event announcements, and a third version for product updates.  Your audiences will appreciate the time you took for this, as they won’t feel like they are getting the same message this mailing as they got in the last one.