What Does the Research Say?

Sending emails consistently is crucial to optimizing prospect and resident engagement. However, sending emails too frequently can quickly result in users' unsubscribing. Marketing Sherpa found most people prefer to receive promotional emails at least once a month. The second highest preference is receiving promotional emails at least once a week. *In multifamily, sending emails 1-2 times per week seems to be well received.

User Behavior as a Signal for Frequency

There are a number of ways to discern if the frequency at which you send your emails is effective or not:

• Number of unsubscribes following your email campaign
• Low OR and CTR
• Higher OR and CTR (ideal response)

Number of Unsubscribes

While nobody wants their prospects or residents to unsubscribe, this is a good indicator if you are sending emails too often. In fact, TechnologyAdvice found that 45.8% of people flag an email as spam because the sender sends messages too often:

Another significant reason why users unsubscribe is due to irrelevant content. You'll notice in the graph above, the third most sighted reason for unsubscribing is due to irrelevant content. In fact, 85% of people surveyed by the DMA (Data & Marketing Association) say that '...less than half of the emails they receive are either interesting or relevant.' In short, sending messages too frequently, especially if they are irrelevant, will result in unsubscribes.

Low Open Rate and Click-Through Rate

You may also find your Open Rate (OR) and Click-Through Rate (CTR) is very low indicating emails are being sent too frequently. TechnologyAdvice found that 43.9% of respondents say businesses could improve their email efforts if they simply sent emails less frequently.

High Open Rate and Click-Through Rate

Conversely, High OR and CTR can indicate that consumers find your send frequency acceptable. It may also indicate you are considering other variables that correspond with the send frequency. For example, you might make it a point to send content that is more informative and more personalized. As noted by the same graph used above, more informative content and more personalized offers are the second and third best ways for businesses to improve email efforts.

Ultimately, you want to ensure your emails resonate with people. Sending an Offer once a month is likely to generate a higher OR and CTR than sending Announcements daily. Again, balance is key.

Best Practices to Improve Send Frequency

Much of user send frequency perception relies on:

• Choice
• Relevancy
• Testing

Give Users a Choice

Choice is crucial for email marketing. Not only do you want users to choose to opt-in to email marketing, but also it's important to offer users a choice regarding send frequency. This can be as simple as having users select if they would prefer emails daily, weekly, or monthly.

Send Relevant Content

As noted above, users want relevant content. They will be more likely to accept your send frequency if they find your content relevant. One way to ensure content is relevant is again through choice. For example, ask users if they would prefer Offers to Announcements.

Test Your Send Frequency

Finally, test your methodology. Try sending an email once every two weeks versus once a week. Then simply pay attention to user behavior following each campaign--unsubscribes, OR, CTR, etc. This gives you an idea if your send frequency is working or if you need to adjust it.

We will discuss this more in the next post--Optimizing Email Metrics Using Email Reporting.