How many times, have we as consumers un-subscribed from emailer’s sent by e-commerce companies, Banks etc. since it clogs the mail-box & “un-subscription” was the only option left for the consumer 🙂 Today we have a guest-article by Varun John of iCubes, a firm specializing in Email-Marketing where he gives insights into “Email-Marketing”.
For the email marketer, the top priority would be to get as many promotional emails into the inbox as possible. But have you ever considered that you might be over-doing it? Shooting campaigns by the dozens can be a huge turn off for your clients. Continue the practice & they will soon vanish from your mailing list. Don’t want such a scenario? It’s time to adopt an optimum frequency for your mailing.
If someone opts to receive your campaigns, newsletters and offer mails your first priority must be to make them appreciate and antedate your campaigns. This isn’t as simple a task as it looks. You need regular analysis, constant innovation in content and smart segmentation to ensure email fatigue does not happen.
Obviously, you want to engage customers as much as possible but you risk running into email fatigue. So you need to weigh in the pros and cons and make an intelligent move from therein.
What is the optimum frequency for my campaigns ?
Sorry to break the bad news, but there is no optimum frequency to send your mails. You can only optimize the frequency with which you target inboxes separately but as a collective there is no frequency that could please everyone. Some might want more mails from your side while othere may require only a few. Irrespective of how often your mails reach your audience, engagment solely relies on how relevant and engaging the content within your mails are.
A thorough understanding of your audience using demo-graphical and behavioral data can get you better insights on customer profiles. This will make your frequency customized and intelligent. You end sending fewer mails than before but the engagment and ROI you gather off doesn’t nosedive. In fact, with a custom frequency you are more likely to get an increased ROI & better customer engagement and loyalty.
Determining the ideal frequency
Before you fiddle about getting the optimal frequency another question needs to be answered. Are you mails reaching inbox? Email fatigue is usually understood when you see a decline in open and click rates. But beware, this might be solely because your deliverability has been affected severely.
As ISPs restlessly and relentlessly change their algorithms to improve customer experience, they take into account a whole lot of factors to determine whom to block. One of the latest additions is checking into average read time that a mail gets. If your emails remain stale, then your mails would soon be making trips to the Junk folder. Keep shooting campaigns on an aggressive pace, your domain reputation will soon get trashed !!!
If deliverability is not the concern, your content most definitely is. Would you like to see the same movie over and over again in just a few days ? Not likely. Your mails are just the same. If your content isn’t fresh and trendy, plus your mails bombard people’s inbox getting blocked is inevitable. Regular monitoring of data can help you resolve many doubts about what your clients are looking for.
Have you ever shared a profile update mailer ?
No, send one right away so you give the control back to the customer. When someone joins your subscriber list, always send a profile update mailer which askes the following questions:
- What sort of content would they like?
- How often they would like to connect?
In fact, you could have a “Click Option” to update preferences of content and frequency in every campaign. The more control that goes to the customer, the faster &Â smarter you can implement suitable strategies.
Let them go
One of the major disappointments that email marketers face is when someone unsubscribes from the list. However, there is a silver lining. Inactive users distort your performance metrics so it’s good to have only those people who love your mails.
Your mailing frequency should change according to the season because expectations vary around the year. In the wake of the holiday season, it is advisable to back down on your offer mailers. Give your subscribers time to detox and rejuvenate.
To continue engagement over this period, set up an automated series of campaigns. The content for each segment you create can vary according to preferences and tastes. A capability one must nurture here is the ability to predict email fatigue across the different demographics. A little bit of experimentation and a whole lot of analysis can help you achieve smart and intuitive prediction models.
About the author
Varun John is a content and social media marketer for iCubes, an ESP provider dedicated towards creating an Email marketing India ecosystem. He is always hunting for new ways for companies to engage with people using innovative technology, insightful data & intelligent marketing. He loves to spend time on his guitar and is an avid reader of advertising techniques, human psychology & history.
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Image Source* –Â SoftTrinity