Okay, so you’ve assembled an impressive email list of folks who have expressed an interest in your product or service. These people may become the lifeblood of your business. The last thing you want to do is alienate them or in any way put them off to doing more business with you in the future. How do you avoid this?
Well, the quickest way to avoid it is to know what not to do. Far too many companies take unfair advantage of their email lists, sending message after message, one on top of another in a short period of time, to the point where those on the receiving end have simply had enough. It doesn’t matter how good a service is; an overbearing approach is one guaranteed way to drive them to other providers.
Now granted, making proper use of your email list can generate additional business, and in some cases you can see a significant boost. Unfortunately, many people are wired to get turned off if you make even the slightest misstep, so you want to do all you can to maximize your reserves.
Finding the right frequency for sending out email blasts can be tricky. Too much and obviously you wear out your welcome. Too little and you end up disappearing into a yawn. You have to walk the fine line between unobtrusive and obnoxious, and granted it’s not always easy to find.
In my own business, I used to send out an update once a week, but due to customer response, I began to see that I was going to the well once too often. So I cut it back to about once a month. Then I started to get responses asking where I went. Eventually, I ended up doing about two updates per month, or once every two weeks. That seemed to balance the responses and I began getting the return I had hoped for. It was just a matter of finding the frequency that worked for me and my service.
Basically, there are three methods for determining the proper frequency for your email blasts:
1. Understand Who Controls The Frequency. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not you. “List fatigue” is the term given when recipients are alienated because of an overabundance of unwanted contact. Not only do you run the risk of losing contacts, but you may also end up being reported as a spammer, which can adversely affect any future attempts at getting your message out.
2. Choose Your Own Frequency. But do so based on your customers’ needs and feedback. Are you doing your current email blast because you have a new product on the market? Something new to say? A limited time only deal on certain services? Or are you doing it just because you haven’t hit the send button in a while and you’re concerned that your customers might forget who you are? Listen to what your customers are saying. If somebody unsubscribes to your list and says they were just getting too many emails from you, take it to heart and consider that before doing another one so quickly.
3. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. You have to respect your subscribers. Maybe you just sent out a mailing only to find out about an unbeatable deal the very next day. Do you follow up with another message that quickly? Well, in some cases you might, but don’t make a habit of it. Customers might forgive the occasional “piling on”, but if it becomes a regular occurrence, you’ll see them jumping ship like rats off the TITANIC. Time and experience will give you a pretty clear understanding of just how much your customers are willing to accept from you.
In conclusion, you also don’t want to underuse your list. Making too little use of this resource can be just as damaging as overdoing it. Going forever without sending anything and then jumping in with both feet around holidays or other special events can also trigger unsubscribe requests as well as spam reports, neither of which you want to see. At the very least, do a monthly update, if only to ask your clients to update their information. Sure, some may wish to unsubscribe, but it is far better to get it that way than to go too far and make somebody mad.
An email list can be a big plus….it is a simple, yet unobtrusive method of keeping your brand name in front of a lot of people, with very little in the way of financial expenditures. Treat the list for what they are, flesh and blood clients who deserve respect and top quality service. Finding the fine line when it comes to frequency will avoid the plague of list fatigue and go a long way towards building your business.
