Are You Sending Too Many Emails?

Everyone worries about sending too many emails, but there is no simple formula for the right sending frequency.

Everyone Has The Same Goal For Their Inbox

HOw Many emails is too many?

The number one question email marketers fret about, from start up businesses run out of garages to multi-million dollar tech conglomerates, is: Am I sending too many emails? It’s a fair question, considering that even those of us who send emails for a living all desire the same thing: an empty inbox.

Just looking at a full notification list can give people anxiety. So, of course you have to wonder if sending too many emails will lead to more unsubscribes. If you talk too much, people stop listening.

In fact, according to this study, the #1 reason for email opt outs is excessive frequency. 

But wait. Curaytor sends multiple emails a week. How can we teach lowering your weekly send count, when we ourselves send plenty of emails? The truth is, while the #1 reason for unsubscribing may be people getting too many emails, the number two reason is much more telling of the problem. 

The #2 reason for email opt-outs is irrelevancy.  

And these two problems go hand in hand.

Think about it this way: You probably have a couple of newsletters, blogs, or even emails that you consider appointment reading. You always make time to digest what they have to say, because they provide value to you. No matter how often they are posted or sent, you make take the time to consume them, whether it’s a Hubspot newsletter or your favorite late night talk show host.

You cannot divorce the issues of frequency and relevancy; they go hand-in-hand. Finding the right balance for your audience is a tightrope act of understanding your audience and owning your personal brand. Deciding the type of content your emails provide is a topic for its own blog post...or entire book, for that matter. But below are four small-scale experiments you can run on your email database right now in order to better grasp how your subscribers are valuing your emails.

Find What Works for you

4 Ways to Understand Your Email Marketing Engagement

Reduce Send Frequency...for some.

On average, a typical ‘off the cuff’ email strategy includes 4-5 email messages within a week, or roughly once a day. Many people probably don’t need to hear from their realtor that often, and if you’re not more discerning, you could try your sphere’s patience. 

Try segmenting out sections of your database and reducing your send frequency to them by half. Measure the CTR of those emails over 6 weeks, and then adjust or maintain the number of emails you send similar leads based on the results.

Create a Campaign

People are drawn into narratives more than other messaging. If you call your subscription a “Daily Update” your audience will expect an email every day. Even better, center a week of sends around a theme such as “5 Days of Foyers,” and showcase some of the best design choices in your market or from homes you’ve previously sold. You can send an email a day and people will be expecting that content because they have engaged with that campaign premise. Your open rate over the course of the campaign will give you intel on how many emails you can send on the same subject before your audience loses interest..

Let Them Choose What To Get

Using social media posts, landing pages, or even an open notebook and a pen posted at the entrance to an open house, you can flip the script on opt-outs by getting people opt-in to receiving hyper-specific messaging. This lets them choose the frequency and subject matter that they’ll want want to hear from you. Try a small opt-in campaign, like “Sign up to learn more” about an open house or local food festival and see for yourself how your open rate improves.

Break It Up

We’ve already mentioned testing within a small segment of your database, but at the end of the day, the more you can break down your audience into smaller, manageable lists, the more likely they are to find value in what you send them. Targeted emails producer higher open rates and higher CTR. Then, you can go further down the rabbit hole with even more targeted follow-up emails. With well segmented lists, you can send more emails than you’d think possible in a week, without sending anyone something that would make them unsubscribe.