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OK…so how much e-mail marketing is too much?

This is a question most people ask me, and unfortunately there is no one right answer. The biggest problem I see in email marketing campaigns is that people either send too much e-mail (welcome to the SPAM game) or fearing they will be labeled a spammer they don’t send enough e-mail and lose the chance to promote their products or services.

This next bit of advice will assume that you have followed the principles set out in my last 2 blog posts and you have built a list of people who are genuinely interested in your products or services.

But I will give you some rules of thumb that will help you determine that “sweet spot” where you can send offers and promotions.

Rules of Thumb on E-mail Content

If you have product or services to sell, I recommend not sending sales pitches every single e-mail. One thing that annoys most people is constantly getting pitched to.

The #1 rule of e-mail marketing is content. Provide quality content. Even if people delete it, I believe there is a funny magic aura that tells people that someone has been pitching them or that someone is really trying to give good content.

I can’t prove it scientifically, but I do believe it.

My rule of thumb is AT LEAST 3 e-mails of content per 1 offer.

Frequency

Here’s the question I am almost always asked, “How often should I send e-mail.”

Again, the short answer is “It depends.”

What it depends on is who is on your list. You really have to know who is on your list to determine how much email you can send them. By understanding their habits, you not only increase your chance of getting them to convert to sales, but you also will get a better idea on how often you can send them offers.

Let me give you some examples:

Let’s say you have a list of people interested in business opportunities. You also know that they are on A LOT of other lists. So, you know they get a lot of e-mail. For these people, you could probably e-mail them every single day.

The reason is that this type of list probably gets A TON of emails. They hardly read all their e-mails, so you have to keep sending them emails just to get it read. In other words, you might have to send 10 emails before they’ll even open it up.

But if your list is comprised of corporate types, if you send them an e-mail every day, you’ll get a resounding amount of anger directed at you.

Another example would be if your list is international. I have known some people who have lists that include people from the UK. He sends out e-mails maybe once a week. His unsubscribe rate is low, but among people from the UK, it is very high. The way people from Britain deal with e-mail is different than in the U.S. So, you should take that into consideration the e-mail habits of non-Americans if you have a substantial list of international readers.

Here are some general of rules of thumb that should help you determine how frequently to send e-mail:

1. If your list is comprised of mostly corporate types, don’t send more than 1 e-mail a week. These people are very busy, and more than once a week is too much for them. If you want to send e-mail more frequently, then make sure they are signing up for a daily e-mail or something of that nature so they know beforehand that they will get frequent e-mails. But make sure your content is really good if you’re going to try this.

2. For most lists, if e-mail marketing is a big part of what you do, then I suggest sending e-mail every 4-5 days.

With either of these, you can play around. If you are not getting response, then maybe increase the frequency. But if you are getting massive unsubscribes, cut back.

There is no one right answer, but the key to e-mail marketing is paying attention to your list. They will tell you when they want your e-mails or when they don’t want them. It is your job to listen to them and deliver what they want.

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• How to do E-mail Marketing Without Pissing People Off Part 1 (0)

The thing that annoys people the most when you send them e-mail is when you don’t give them any choice but to get your e-mail.

Let me illustrate:

I get e-mails from these annoying article directories that I submitted articles to. They are constantly bombarding me with all these great “offers”.

I am sick and tired of getting these e-mails. I have sent many of the senders e-mails asking to get off their list.

But…I typically get these responses:

1. The e-mail bounces
2. No response
3. An e-mail reminding me “you signed up for our article directory and said we could send you e-mail. So, we are.”

Well, what choices am I left with? I have to block the sender or tag them as spammers, which, technically, they are not.

But nothing can piss a person off more than when they feel like their inbox is being violated by people who insist on having their offers down their throats. So, I feel no guilt or shame about tagging these people as spammers and hope they get blacklisted.

But this doesn’t have to happen when you e-mail market. You see, some people do this type of thing without even knowing it. Some people use a database program and then “mail merge” in Word. This is great for getting out a lot of e-mails, but it has a fatal flaw. And this brings me to the message of the day:

Give your subscribers an easy way to opt out of your list.

There are two ways to make this easy.

1. Provide an unsubscribe link on every e-mail. Since I use a service called Aweber, this is done automatically for me. At the end of every e-mail I send is a message asking people to click a link to unsubscribe. This lets people who do not wish to get e-mail from me an easy way to stop getting them. And actually, this is a good thing for me. If some people think I send them too much e-mail, then they vote with their computers. As a marketer and business owner, we must make sure we have people on our lists that are responsive to our offers. Those that don’t want even the occasional e-mail is not likely to be a good prospect. So, it’s best for everyone if they can easily get off your list.

2. Let them subscribe to your RSS feed. To me this is the best way to empower your list. Without being too technical here, an RSS feed gives your list the ultimate control. They can subscribe and unsubscribe without giving up their contact information. So, you are completely out of the loop. Though RSS feeds are popular now, I do not suggest only having a feed. I recommend giving people both options of subscribing to your feed and e-mail updates.

A surefire way to frustrate people when you send them e-mail is to force them to continue receiving them. By giving people easy ways to opt out, you can prevent that.

Tune in for the last installment when I talk about the e-mail marketing issue most people ask me about: how to determine when you’re sending too much or too little e-mail.

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