Emailing Your Opt-in Mailing List

11 replies
how often do you email your list? i am just starting to create a list and have really no experience with emailing subscribers.

do you send more emails immediatly after they sign up (maybe 1 per day for a week) then ease off a bit later on, or vice versa?

obviously providing more value than promo offers is key but i just want the advice of people who have already succeeded in this realm
#emailing #list #mailing #optin
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    I've tested various "patterns" of emailing my lists in only 4 of my 8 niches, but have applied the findings to all of them (because even though the niches are very different, the traffic demographics and the way I attract people to my lists are very similar).

    I send email on days 1, 3, 6, 10 and 15 and thereafter at 5-day intervals for ever, with a promotion in about one email in three (sometimes one email in two) and valuable content in all emails (including the "promotional" ones).

    Many people will send email more/less than this.

    I know that some people send email as often as every day (especially during the first week). My own testing suggested strongly to me that if I did this with my lists, I'd get many unsubscriptions, lower open rates and less future income from the remainder.
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    • Profile picture of the author la dominatrix
      My testing reflects the same thing, at first sell in no more than forty percent of the emails and forever make sure you send out valuable free content. Sell the sizzle not the sausage and you will have more money long term


      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      I've tested various "patterns" of emailing my lists in only 4 of my 8 niches, but have applied the findings to all of them (because even though the niches are very different, the traffic demographics and the way I attract people to my lists are very similar).

      I send email on days 1, 3, 6, 10 and 15 and thereafter at 5-day intervals for ever, with a promotion in about one email in three (sometimes one email in two) and valuable content in all emails (including the "promotional" ones).

      Many people will send email more/less than this.

      I know that some people send email as often as every day (especially during the first week). My own testing suggested strongly to me that if I did this with my lists, I'd get many unsubscriptions, lower open rates and less future income from the remainder.
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    • Profile picture of the author Converting Copy
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      I've tested various "patterns" of emailing my lists in only 4 of my 8 niches, but have applied the findings to all of them (because even though the niches are very different, the traffic demographics and the way I attract people to my lists are very similar).

      I send email on days 1, 3, 6, 10 and 15 and thereafter at 5-day intervals for ever, with a promotion in about one email in three (sometimes one email in two) and valuable content in all emails (including the "promotional" ones).

      Many people will send email more/less than this.

      I know that some people send email as often as every day (especially during the first week). My own testing suggested strongly to me that if I did this with my lists, I'd get many unsubscriptions, lower open rates and less future income from the remainder.
      GP. You work with much more structure than I do.

      Anyways it depends on the niche and list as others have said. My namesake's list, for example, revolves around an autoresponder dressed up as a training course in which I pledge to send a new lesson every day, so I'm bound to that; it's a lot of information to soak up each day so it couldn't hurt spacing it out, but it feels more structured this way, plus they can go at their own pace when it comes to the content I'm sending them, so the spacing doesn't matter so much as it will still be in their email.

      After the autoresponder I don't have a schedule, I send out broadcast emails whenever I feel like I have something important to tell them about so that can be frequently or not very frequently at all.
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  • Profile picture of the author redstanford
    thanks for the response. i will use your method
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  • Profile picture of the author IrishMarketer
    It really does depend on your niche and how fast it is changing. Alexa is on the money with the schuldule. But you need to test your self. More importnat than when you mail is to know, your open rate, your click rate and your EPC. As in earnings per click, how many clicks you send and how much money tat makes you.

    i have been involved with mailing lists as big as 2.8 million taht are being mailed twice a day. Whats your objective in mailing, is it to create fans, or make money. If its fans, softly and gently. Make money what seems to work is , buy or go away.

    Bottom line, test, test and test again.
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    • Profile picture of the author redstanford
      my objective is to make money from my list however i want to do it responsibly by providing value to every member of my list. i don't want to be or be seen as a spam marketer
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      • Profile picture of the author myob
        I email my lists everyday. As long as you always offer value, consistently over-deliver, and never disappoint your subscribers, the frequency of delivery is perhaps not as important. Failure to fulfill the expectations of your customers (including perceived abuse) is what results in high unsubscribe rates.
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        • Profile picture of the author tayuyaa
          Originally Posted by myob View Post

          I email my lists everyday. As long as you always offer value, consistently over-deliver, and never disappoint your subscribers, the frequency of delivery is perhaps not as important.
          Id like to know how you can do that.

          How do you offer value and over deliver each and every day?

          I dont know your market or niches, but in the MMO niche, emailing them
          every day with new methods and tactics can not be seen (In my opinion) as value, if you could explain a bit more about this Id be happy, I need to learn some marketing skills.

          Thanks

          PS- I email my list every 2-3-4 days it varies.
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          • Profile picture of the author myob
            Originally Posted by tayuyaa View Post

            Id like to know how you can do that.

            How do you offer value and over deliver each and every day?
            All of my lists are in extremely competitive niches, so once they're in my system there is no let up. They know that everyday they will always receive valuable information, tips, resources, product reviews, free ebooks, bonuses, recommendations, stories, jokes, etc.

            And they buy because I literally overwhelm them with consistently valueable content, and then of course always include hard sell promotions at the end of every message. Everyday the pattern is always the same, with never any unpleasant surprises.

            When they do buy, the cycle starts all over again with incrementally higher end products. The unsubscribe rate across all niches is actually quite low, although non-buyers and inactives are culled in four month cycles.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ross Cohen
    It also has to do with what you're emailing. If you have a lot of great information for your readers, I don't see anything wrong with 2 emails a week. Just don't fill up their inbox with information they don't want or need.
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  • Profile picture of the author viscoa
    Alexa and IrishMarketer bring up a lot of good points. You have to get to know your list, only then will you figure out what works best for it. Alexa's schedule sounds pretty good as a way to test.
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