The CAN-SPAM Act doesn’t specify what types of e-mail content to send to
your e-mail list subscribers. The best practice is to send e-mail content that
matches your audience’s expectations or interests. Here are some tips for setting
expectations for your potential e-mail list subscribers and for sending
e-mail content that matches their expectations as well as their interests:
- Include a description of your e-mail content and your typical frequency
in your sign-up process.
For example, if you send a monthly e-mail newsletter along with periodic
promotions to your e-mail list, your e-mail list sign-up form might
include a sentence that reads
Signing up allows you to receive our monthly e-mail newsletter as well as
periodic special offers related to our newest products.
- Send only the content that your e-mail list subscribers expect you
to send.
For example, if potential e-mail list subscribers share their e-mail
address in order to receive a quote for your services, don’t send them
offers unless they gave you permission as part of requesting a quote.
- Allow your e-mail list subscribers to choose their own interests.
If you send several distinct types of e-mail content such as coupons
and event invitations give your e-mail list subscribers a list of categories
to choose from when signing up. Make sure to give them a mechanism
for changing their interests, such as a link to their profile, in every
e-mail.
Deciding When and How Often to Send
Consumers tend to perceive e-mail that arrives too often as spam, so you
need to figure out the frequency rate and timing of your e-mails. Frequency
refers to the number of e-mails you send and the period of time in between
each e-mail you send. Typical frequencies include
- Once
- Daily
- Weekly
- Bi-monthly, or every other week
- Monthly
Balancing the frequency of every e-mail message with the needs and expectations
of your audience is more of an art than a science. According to a 2006
Epsilon Interactive consumer e-mail study, 73 percent of consumers will
unsubscribe if they feel that a company sends e-mail too frequently.
Consumers are willing to receive e-mails with almost any frequency as long as
the content of the message remains relevant and valuable to them. Keep your
content relevant to your consumers, and they most likely will remain
happy with your frequency.
For example, a stock broker could probably get away with sending an e-mail
twice per day to his subscribers if the message contains a single line of text
announcing the current price of important stocks. The same stock broker
would probably run into trouble, however, if he used the same mailing frequency
to send a promotional e-mail asking his customers to invest in various
stocks because not everyone is likely to make investment decisions with that
frequency.
Even though proper frequency depends on relevant content, you should recognize
the factors that most consumers consider to value the frequency of your
e-mails. Consumers generally judge your e-mail frequency depending on the
following:
- The total number of e-mails
- The length of each e-mail
- How often you ask them to take action
- The relevance of the information you provide
- The timing
Determining how many e-mails to send
Determining the proper number of e-mails to send is a fine balance: Send
too many e-mail messages, and you overwhelm your audience with too many
e-mails. Conversely, send too few, and you can overwhelm your audience with
too much content in each one.
The total number of e-mail messages that you send should match your
consumer’s need for your information and not your need to send the
information.
For example, a realtor might want to send dozens of e-mails over a period of
weeks to people actively shopping for a home while sending only one e-mail
per month to people who rent an apartment, with no immediate intentions of
purchasing a home.
Estimating the total number of messages your audience expects usually
depends on two factors:
- The number of times your audience engages in a buying cycle
If your prospects or customers purchase your products or services
once per week, sending 52 e-mails per year is probably a good place
to start with your frequency. If your prospects or customers take
months or even years to make purchase decisions, you can base the
number of e-mails you send on the number of times that they are likely
to talk about their purchases with their peers. For example, if you sell
once-in-a-lifetime vacations, you might create an affinity club for past
vacationers and keep your customers talking about their experience
by sending invitations to members-only social reunions four times
per year.
- The amount of information your audience needs to make a purchase
decision
Some purchase decisions are easy for consumers to make, but others
require much more consideration. If your audience requires a lot of information
to justify a decision, the number of e-mails that you send should
increase so you don’t overwhelm your audience with too much content
in a few e-mails. Instead, send several e-mails with a bit of content in
each one.
Estimating how many e-mails you need to effectively deliver all of your information
might be as simple as dividing your information into equal parts or as
complex as delivering successively greater amounts of content as your audience
becomes more engaged.
Although paying attention to the needs of your audience is always the best
policy, sometimes your e-mail content dictates the appropriate number of
messages to send. For example, the total number of e-mails you send might
depend on:
- The amount of change in your content: If your e-mails always have the
same basic message, you don’t need to send as many as if your content
were always fresh and new.
- The theme of your content: If your e-mail includes frequency in the
theme, you can match the number of e-mails you send to that theme. For
example, if your subscribers sign up for a daily motivational quote, you
need to send 365 e-mails for the year, but delivering an annual report
requires only 1 e-mail per year.
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