One of the most common questions people have regarding list building is just how often you should write to your e-mail list. There are numerous opinions and strategies regarding this, some of which are just plain stupid while others make perfect sense. Here’s what you need to know in order to have a successful list building experience:
Your Customers are People, Not ATMs
For all that we all want to make money from our e-mail lists, we also need to remember that our customers are real people with real issues, just like anyone else. That means that you can’t treat them like an ATM. You need to provide them with a real reason to spend money on your products and indeed to even open your e-mails to begin with.
Therefore, the very first thing to remember is that you should have something useful to say and you should not send out e-mails simply expecting that people will hand over their hard earned cash to you.
Frequency
Okay, so we know now that our customers need to have a reason to hear from us. Now, let’s get to the most basic part of this whole discussion: just how often should you send out messages to your e-mail list anyway? I’ve seen people who do the blitzkrieg version of e-mail marketing and I’ve also seen people who do the high school reunion version.
In other words, one person sends out e-mails every day and sometimes multiple times per day while another will send out e-mails every couple of years, as if they were contacting people for the five, ten and fifteen year high school reunions. Both of these approaches are a terrible idea.
Think about What You’d Want
I’m not trying to inject religion into this discussion, but I do need to mention the so called “Golden Rule.” Hillel the Elder reputedly said “that which is hateful to you, do not to others.” Jesus turned it around and said “do unto others as you would have them do to you.”
Either way, this is excellent advice for those trying to make a living doing Internet marketing with e-mail lists. You know yourself that you don’t want to hear from someone who you bought from six times a day, so why would you think any of your customers would want that? Remember – your e-mail list is made up of people, not ATMs. Similarly, you also know that you don’t want to hear out of the blue from some company you once bought a product from ten years ago, so why would you want to do that to your customers?
Pretend You’re Writing to a Friend
Instead, pretend that you’re writing to a friend. Not a very close friend, but one you like to keep in touch with. This means you may write every few days, maybe once a week or once every few weeks. No more and no less. This way, you’ll find that your e-mail list becomes more responsive to you and isn’t alienated because you annoyed them or wasted their time talking about things that happened back during the Reagan administration.