One of the biggest reasons cited by people who opt to unsubscribe from a mailing list or email marketing list is that they are receiving too many emails in their inbox. Although a high frequency of emails can lead to greater brand recognition, it can also overwhelm the customer and cause them to feel irritated. Once this happens and they choose to unsubscribe to your email list, it can be difficult to get them back. They will take their business elsewhere.
Not everyone who is annoyed by having too many emails sent from an email marketing list will unsubscribe. The largest percentage of people who do not respond to your offer will simply delete the email, more than likely without ever even opening it to read what is inside. Another large percentage of nonresponders will mark the message as “spam,” which can be very harmful to your email marketing list plans. When a large number of people mark the same message as spam, many email providers will respond to this by automatically marking emails from that address as spam, and they will never even reach the inboxes. The problem with this is that then the email will never get to the people who actually might open it up, read it and respond.
To avoid being deleted unread or marked as spam, you really need to find the “sweet spot” when it comes to email frequency. There is no right answer, and you can read for days and days and days online about email list marketing and find many different opinions on the topic of frequency. The simple fact is that the best frequency often depends on the type of customer and the type of product that you are offering. Best practices vary widely from niche to niche. If you sell patio furniture, then you will want to focus on spring and summer offers more frequently for certain parts of the country, while other geographical regions may be in the market for these products on a year round basis. This is where it truly pays to know your customers well, and to keep targeted lists.
A higher frequency of emails does not always lead to a higher conversion rate. Too high can lead to email list attrition however, or being marked as a spammer.