How Often Should You Email Your List

There are two schools of thought (at least) on email messages. Some people think you should send out an email to your list every day; some people think you should send to your list twice a day. Frankly, I have a life which means I don’t have time to do two send-outs a day. I noticed recently that a person who was one of the biggest proponents of sending to your list at least twice a day has now backed down to sending only about four times a week. I find him less obnoxious now.
Here’s the thing: Very few of us have something fascinating to say every day. Even me. (I know!! Can you believe it?) If people have signed up for a 7 or 21 day (or 30 day) course from you, then yes, they are expecting to hear from you and if your content is good, they are looking forward to it. But sending an email every day for the sake of sending an email is going to result in lousy content and a burned out list.
This is my personal philosophy; you can take it or leave it. I think contacting your list three times a week is optimal. It puts you in front of them often enough so they know who you are without making them tired of seeing you. Depending on how busy your life is, you may only contact them once or twice a week. Conversely, I have found that once a month is not nearly enough to hold people’s interest.
Now, you can cheat a bit. A business associate and I have a number of real estate sites. We do a Tip of the Week opt-in on most of them so that one broadcast message goes out to lists for three separate sites. You can do the same with a quote of the day or week, send outs of healthy recipes or anything else where you can use a more generic style message just to keep in front of people. But I would advise to augment that with at least one message a week that addresses each list specifically.
No matter how many times you contact your list, remember that you must have a valid reason for contacting them, whether it’s a helpful tip, new information, a discount on a product or a change in policy. But don’t fall into the lame trap of creating “events” that are non-events. What do I mean by that? Have you ever seen the commercials that start out “The boss is on vacation so the staff is throwing a BIG SALE!” LAME. Tired, trite, lame and, worst of all, untrue.
It’s a balancing act to know how often to contact your list without being annoying. But as long as you are bringing value to your people, your emails will be welcome.