If you are building an online business, you probably know how important it is to grow an email list. But how often should you be sending newsletters to those subscribers?
And it isn’t an easy question to answer as every business is different! But you can definitely send too few emails so how many is that?
So how often should you send email newsletters?
I would usually say anything less than once a week is too few email newsletters.
If you are only emailing every 2 weeks or every month, people will liekly forget who you are and have no reason to open your email when they see it in their inbox.
When they see your name frequently in your inbox, they recognise it and are more likely to open your emails. And if your emails are good, they will look forward to reading them!
But it’s not just about being recognised in the inbox.
Recent email deliverability changes mean that more emails are being filtered to spam folders and one of the most important things we can do to prevent this from happening to our emails, is to email regularly and consistently.
So if you are only emailing every 2-4 weeks, it is far more likely your emails will end up in the promo or spam folders and so less people will see your emails.
To avoid this happening to you, I would say the minimum you should be emailing your audience is once a week.
However, I would say a little more often than weekly is preferably. If you can 3 times a week is probably a sweet spot.
3 times a week is often enough to stay top of mind, to help your name get recognised, to help your audience get into a routine of reading your emails.
3 times a week also gives you plenty of opportunities to put offers in front of your audience and monetise your email list effectively.
Can you email more than 3 times a week?
Yes, absolutely!
Some weeks I email every day! And my unsubscribe rates have never suffered for it. I also get open rates of over 50%
But I would always recommend if you are increasing your email frequency, that you do so slowly. To go from monthly emails to daily emails overnight is a bit of a sudden change and it’s better to gradually increase your email frequency and closely monitor your open rates, click through rates and unsubscribe rates.
The more you email, the more opportunities you have to…
nurture your audience so they know like and trust you
establish your expertise so they see you as the go-to person in your niche
put your offers in front of your audience more often leading to more sales over time.
Do you have to email at the same time every week?
I’ve never been super consistent like this and I’ve never had any trouble with email engagement.
Some people will tell you that you need to train your audience to open your emails at a certain time every week.
But I’ve never found this to be the case and I think if your emails are good enough and people want to hear what you have to say, they will open your emails and read them.
And if you are forcing yourself to send an email when you don’t have much to say, chances are your email will fall a bit flat which is only going to have a negative effect on your open rates over time.
So whilst I think you should aim to email consistently at least once a week and preferably 3 times or more a week, you shouldn’t force yourself to do this unless you have something interesting to say.
If you only go a few weeks with only 1-2 emails and then go back to 3 times a week when there’s more going on in your niche, you shouldn’t notice any negative consequences.
When is the best time to email your subscribers?
This is something you can test a little.
What’s the best time for one audience might not be the best time for another. So send newsletters at different times of day and watch for trends with your open rates.
I like to send my emails earlier in the day when there’s fewer emails in my audiences inbox. Also I think a lot of people read their emails first thing in the morning when they wake up so I like to have an email waiting for them in the morning.
That said, whilst many people will read emails early in the morning, maybe theyre not in a position to act on an email and make a purchase until later in the day so sometimes I find it’s better to send sales emails later in the day.
My best advice to you is to test test test!
How many emails should you send during a launch or promotion?
People’s inboxes are busy, they might not read every email you send.
Also it’s very easy to forget a deadline, even if we really REALLY want something. And it’s crushing when you open that final email just a few hours too late.
That’s why I’ve been experimenting with sending more emails during a launch or promotional period.
More opportunities for people to learn about my offers, more opportunities to tackle objections, position benefits, showcase testimonials and more reminders so they don’t miss that deadline and regret it the next day.
And my open rates and unsubscribe rates have stayed steady despite this increase. (Open rates mid launch >50% and unsubscribe rates below 0.1%)
I figure that if your emails are good enough, people want to open them – even the sales emails. Because people can still gain value from sales emails without buying. Whether that’s inspiration for their own sales emails, a little tip they learn or a big dose of inspiration!
And if they don’t want to read them, they can ignore them or opt out – I always include an opt out option when I’m sending multiple emails about an offer.
Currently I send 2 emails on day 1.
I send 1-2 emails throughout the promotional period and on day 4, I send 3-4 emails including a reminder when the offer is about to expire.
If this sounds a lot more than you usually send, try increasing slowly.
Add an extra email on day 1 and the final day and then increase as you feel comfortable with each launch and watch those stats to see what happens!
How to be consistent sending emails more often?
So you might be thinking, ‘wow, 3 emails a week is a lot – what on earth would I say?!’
Or you might be wondering how you can find the time to fit this into your already busy schedule.
Here are a few ways you can get more consistent with sending (good) emails, consistently, that your audience will look forward to reading…
Keep your newsletters short & snappy
Firstly, not every email you send needs to be an essay!
Short snappy emails with a clear call to action can work really well.
They can also work well to be a pattern interrupt if you usually send lengthier chatty emails.
If I want people to read a blog post then I usually keep my email to a few sentences about why they should click through (what will the content help them to achieve?)
Then follow up with a button inviting them to learn more.
These emails get great click through rates which are brilliant for your email deliverability!
Use AI for ideas
AI can be brilliant for giving you ideas.
Especially if you train AI to get to know your business.
If you use Chat GPT pro, make sure you trun on the memory settings so that it remembers what you tell it about what you do, who you help etc.
Tell Chat GPT (or Claude or similar) what you want to achieve with your email. Do you want replies? Click throughs? Do you want to learn more about your audience? Are you trying to establish authority on a specific topic ahead of a launch?
Ask it to make some suggestions for topics for your emails.
You can also tell Chat GPT about stories that have happened to you and ask it to relate it back to your niche with learning points for your audience. Great for storytelling style emails.
Chat GPT will even help write your emails for you. If you use AI, make sure you train it on your style and tone and make personal tweaks, add your own stories etc.
AI is great to speed up content creation (including newsletters) but remember your emails do need a personal touch to keep people opening them!
Use templates
If you have the right templates, they can really help both with ideas and with the writing process making it as painless as possible.
The right templates will help you to infuse your own personality but will also be written to maximise email engagement and ultimately sales of your offers (or affiliate offers.)
I highly recommend Liz Wilcox’s email marketing membership. For $9 a month, she’ll send you a weekly template with examples for how to use it in differing niches.
PLUS you’ll get access to a HUGE library of email templates for everything from welcome emails and emails that gets clicks/replies to sales emails.
It’s one of the best value memberships I’ve ever been in. I sign up every year even though I love writing newsletters and rarely run out of ideas because it’s reassuring to know I have a back up if I’m ever struggling for inspiration!
Batch work your emails
I find once you get into the flow of writing newsletters, they come more easily and one idea leads to another.
That’s why I recommend batch working your email newsletters when inspiration hits.
Even if you just write the body of the email so that all you have to do is add your links, format your email and hit send when you are ready!
Get into a good routine
If you’re not a fan of batch working then instead you need to get into a good routine where you prioritise a certain window of your working week.
Set the same time aside every week and set yourself a reminder in your diary to make it happen.
Sending frequent emails may feel like a chore but I can’t stress how important a healthy email list is and how vital your email list is for growing and scaling your business. It deserves to be a priority!
Automate your newsletters
If even with your best intentions, you struggle to stay consistent, then I highly recommend automating your newsletters.
In fact, I think everyone should do this with at least one email a week.
That way if you get sick or life happens and you can’t send a newsletter, you know that at least one email will still get sent keeping your email list engaged and warm!
I have a weekly newsletter called ‘Strategy Sundays’ where I send a easy quick-win strategy for people to try that week. The emails are highly valuable and the focus is on educating my audience and establishing myself as an expert.
If you want to see these emails in action, you can join my email list to get Strategy Sunday emails here.
I do sometimes make sales from these emails in the PS (when I have a related offer) but what I love about them is that it’s a great way to subtle sell my offers and boost product awareness.
Whilst I don’t make many sales directly from these emails, I am building product awareness so that when I have a flash sale, people already know about what I sell and so they’re more likely to go shopping when I offer a discount!
Their main purpose though is to nurture my audience on a weekly basis leaving me free to use my other newsletters for more sale-focussed emails!
If you’d like to learn more about building an evergreen, automated value newsletter that won’t clash with your other emails or funnels, then you can learn more inside my course Series to Superfans.
Conclusion: How often should you email your list?
So with all of this in mind, I generally recommend emailing your list at least once a week but preferably closer to 3 times a week – or more if you have the capacity.
This will help to boost your deliverabilty, help your audience get to know you and give you plenty of opportunities to put offers in front of your audience (without ONLY selling!)
https://passiveincomesuperstars.thrivecart.com/series-to-superfans/Emailing multiple times a week doesn’t have to feel daunting. You can use templates, AI, mix up more chatty emails with short and snappy newsletters focussed on your CTA, batch work or even automate your weekly newsletters like I do with my Strategy Sunday emails!
Once you start prioritising sending frequent emails to your audience, you will find it starts to feel easy and part of your weekly routine. Your business will also start to thrive!
