Are You Emailing Too Much (Here’s How To Know…)
By Anna Johnson on October 18th, 2008Writing in Clayton Makepeace’s Total Package blog, Bob Bly offers a simple way to assess whether you’re emailing your list too frequently.
According to Bob Bly, an objective and accurate way to determine the optimal e-mail frequency of your emails is to check how many people opt out after each mailing. If your opt-out rate (the number of people who unsubscribe divided by how many people received your email) is 0.1 percent or less… you’re NOT sending out too many emails. But if your opt-out rate is 0.2-0.4 percent, you are losing too many subscribers.
Of course it’s not just how frequently you mail that may cause people to unsubscribe. Bob suggests varying email frequency, the ratio of promotional to non-promotional content, message length and topics, until your opt-out rate is around 0.1 to 0.2 percent or less.
On the other hand, you may find that you’re not emailing your list frequently enough. And, if email is integral to your marketing efforts, fewer emails means fewer sales. On that basis, you may wish to email more often to test the reaction from your list. Sure, some people may unsubscribe, but if your unsubscribe rate is still 0.2 percent or less, you’ve probably reached a more optimal frequency.
Source: Bob Bly, “How Much E-mail Is Too Much?” The Total Package, October 7, 2008
