How Often Should You Email Your List?
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We talk about consistency in email marketing all the time. But what does consistency really mean? And how often should you email your list? In this episode, I’m digging into how many emails you should send each month, plus what the updated email marketing requirements from Yahoo and Google are saying.
What does consistency mean?
Consistency doesn’t mean bombarding your audience every day. Consistency simply means establishing a pattern, whether it's sending emails once a week or four times a week. However, this pattern doesn't have to remain rigid throughout different seasons of life or business. Factors such as personal challenges or a busy business period may mean adjusting your email frequency.
The email marketing updates from Gmail and Yahoo really stress the importance of consistency. But it’s also important to note that they don’t give us a number. AKA once again, consistency can be a little vague. However, the takeaway is to stick to a plan and follow through on it. If your emails are sporadic or you ghost your list, you’re likely to get marked as spam, end up with more cold leads, and hurt your deliverability.
How often should you email your list?
To get straight into it, I strongly believe you should email your list at least once a week. This is how you stay top of mind. Can you mess up sometimes? Take a break here and there? Sure. Life isn’t perfect. But to the best of your ability: once a week.
Of course, a lot of people will email more frequently than this. Figuring out your ideal frequency comes down to looking at your capacity and circumstances. How much time can you dedicate to email? Do you have anyone supporting you? Is this a slower or busier season?
The worst thing you can do, in my opinion, is to aim high with your frequency and consistently miss the mark because you’re overburdening yourself. That can be more detrimental than beneficial. You risk becoming forgettable or, worse, marked as spam.
Email Marketing Updates and Their Effect on Frequency
So, what happens if you’re emailing once a week and feeling good? How should you change your frequency and start emailing more?
As I mentioned, Yahoo and Google have talked about how consistency is super important. They also said that dramatically increasing your sending frequency can set off red flags. Google specifically recommends increasing your send rate slowly, so you don’t negatively impact your domain reputation.
If you hurt your domain reputation, it’s not irreparable - but it does take a while to rebuild. A low domain reputation can lead to bounced emails and emails landing in the spam folder. As you increase how often you send emails, use Postmaster Tools to monitor your domain reputation to make sure everything is going smoothly.
We tend to think that consistency means going all in. But you get to determine what consistency means for you. At a minimum, I recommend once a week. With email marketing changes, Google is telling us that monitoring data sender reputation and spam rate will be more important than ever. Cautiously increase the amount of emails you send, and if you’re raising your email from the dead, do it slowly and steadily.