Why More is More

Email frequency is a topic that sparks a lot of debates. Advocating for more emails might sound counterintuitive in our overloaded digital world, but let me break down why this strategy works. With email, you’re not at the mercy of ever-changing social media algorithms. You own your valuable first-party data, ensuring consistent and reliable communication with your audience. Recent events, like the TikTok outage, have highlighted the risks of relying solely on external platforms to reach your customers.

Why More is Better

If you send 20 emails to a customer who only opens one, they are more likely to spend more than a customer who gets five emails and opens all of them. Time and time again, when analyzing client data, we've found that email drives more visits to your website than paid media. The more emails you send, the more you stay top-of-mind, and the more likely customers are to engage with your brand.

The Misconception of Segmentation

Let’s challenge a common belief. If you have a list of 200,000 people and currently send one email a month, which will make more money? Segmenting that list so each person gets a different email or just sending everyone the same email twice a month? Most people would say segmentation, but actually, it's not true. You will get more money by sending everyone the same email twice a month than by staying on a frequency of one and segmenting it.

Real-World Insights

Time and time again, when analyzing client data, we've found that email drives more visits to your website than paid media. This is supported by the findings from Mailchimp, which highlight that email marketing consistently outperforms social media in generating awareness and driving conversions. The seminal study by Mailchimp found that inactive subscribers are still valuable customers. According to their data, inactive subscribers are 26% more likely to make a follow-up purchase than non-subscribers. You can find more details on their findings here.

The Impact of Branding

Seeing an email twice a week in your inbox makes you more likely to visit the sender’s website and transact with the sender. More importantly, it increases your spontaneous recall of that particular brand. Even unopened emails serve as a constant reminder of your brand and offers. For example, if your busiest day in the store is Saturday and you send an email on Friday with the subject line: "Great Offers in Store this Weekend," your audience gets the message without needing to open the email.

Conversion Without Opens or Clicks

Simply having your email in the inbox can drive customers to your store.

Reach Through Frequency

Most brands, in any given month, will only mail between 40% and 60% of their subscribers. When I talk about reach in email marketing, I don’t mean the total number of people on your database—although very important, it's driven to a secondary position by not mailing people you could. If you don’t mail someone who could get an email, then they've got a frequency of zero that month. Raising that frequency to one or two emails a month significantly improves your reach. Frequency is a way of driving reach in email marketing among your existing subscribers.

Conclusion

Think of your email strategy in its entirety. Rather than focusing on how many emails you send to everyone each week, consider how many emails an individual or cohort gets in a month. Whatever that number is, you’re unlikely to feel that adding one more is over-mailing. Increasing email frequency doesn’t have to mean bombarding subscribers—it means adding value with each additional email. A happy birthday email, an abandoned cart reminder, a special offer for loyal customers, or a win-back email for those who haven’t purchased in a while—these are all examples of relevant, valuable emails that contribute to a smart email marketing strategy.

When considering email frequency, think smarter. Every additional email you send should add value for the recipient. By adopting a thoughtful and strategic approach, you can increase your email frequency effectively and drive better engagement and results. Frequency drives engagement, and if starting with simple resends helps build your budget and case for investing more in email, then that’s a smart move too.

To help you visualize this strategy, here’s 2 versions of a schematic I call the Perfect Email Program; It includes a variety of email types that you can incorporate into your strategy to add value and increase frequency effectively:

?This is for B2C - I will post the B2B version in comments.