That Fine Line Between Providing Value Content and Spamming Subscribers

Before I developed my own email marketing campaigns, I subscribed to one or two other people's opt-in pages as a consumer who was looking for some information of interest. To this day, I remain subscribed to one of those email campaigns because I receive truly value information from them on a consistent basis ... but they only send it to me maybe three times per week. That's it. It's a beautiful thing!

By contrast, I have opted into other campaigns where, suddenly, whoever was on the other end of my email address decided, "Oh, well, she has subscribed to this list, so that must mean she wants to be added to FOUR MORE of my lists, too." And they automatically added me to a bunch of their lists without my consent! Following that, I was bombarded with three or four emails PER DAY! RIDICULOUS!!! I never read the emails. In fact, within two days I unsubscribed from every single one of their lists, and I will never trust their brand again. I'll never subscribe again. I'll never refer anyone else to them, either.

I feel sorry for the company who owns that service I was subscribing to because I suspect it wasn't actually them I was dealing with. I'm willing to bet it was an inexperienced, newbie affiliate marketer who was simply trying to build up their subscriber lists without much consideration to actually offering me any value content. They just wanted to try to make a fast dollar.

Now that I run my own campaigns, I want to make sure I'm sending regular content to my subscribers, and I make sure it's always useful content. But I limit it to one email per day or every other day ... it depends on the list. And I will NEVER automatically add anyone to more than one of my lists unless they specifically ask me to. I think it's very wrong to do that.

What is your experience with this? I'm interested in hearing from both the list developers and the subscribers. What do you think is a reasonable amount of contact? And do you think it's wrong to add people to additional lists? If yes, why? If no, why?

 

Even once a week seems like an overkill to me. Granted sometimes it's appropriate (my wife gets Kohl's coupons via email almost weekly), but I can't see how it can be a good thing when it comes to internet marketing. I'd be tuning out those types of offers real fast. Twice a month has worked just fine for me. Many think it's not enough, but when I look at the percentage of people that unsubscribe from my lists (not many), I am happy with the twice a month (occasionally once a month) approach.

 

I can only speak as a subscriber. But I would have to agree with @qwikad.com, once every two weeks seems reasonable. Otherwise the subscriber/client can get annoyed.

 

I think that it depends, to a certain extent, on how new and fresh your content is. For example, for my day job, I have a deep marketing team that produces new and unique content, extremely relevant to our customers, on a regular basis. I would say that we send out brief email newsletters to our customers/prospects 3 out of 4 weeks per month (we do make sure to give it a breather at least one week per month. For my own small ecommerce business, I have much less new content and probably send out one newsletter every 1-2 months.

 

once a week? Are you kidding me? Inundating people with emails will just get you balcklisted and a total spammer unless they agree to that and what you provide is vital to their business or existence otherwise ads and EDMs should not be as frequent. We send regular content to subscribers for various clients, although client by client and case by case the story is different, but maybe once a month for a retailer is what I would draw the line and even that is not to the same list.

 

Okay, so I have a question for all of you who have replied to this thread...

I'm sending some of my subscribers one email per day and others one email every other day for a full month straight. Following that, they get maybe one or two per week. The majority of those emails are free value content related to the information they subscribed to. Within that month, I also send them three or four emails that plug my books. No one has marked any of my emails as spam yet. I have a very low unsubscribe rate, too ... maybe 2%.

I've received the recommendation that one email per day is best. Any less than that and you lose momentum with your list, he said. What do you think about that advice?

 

Sheesh, you've totally ignored the advice given here. If you believe one email per day is the best way to go, then any further discussion here is totally pointless to me. Although I'd be interested to know if, indeed, it worked for you in the long run.

 

I set up these email campaigns before I posted this thread (as I stated in the original post). I received his advice first, but then I came on here to seek additional advice. I'm new to all this, so I'm curious about how other people view this. That's all. I'm still very open to hearing other people's opinions on this.

In my original post, I talked about how I feel people are spamming me when they add me to additional lists without my consent. I wanted to know how other people view this, how they run their own campaigns, how they feel as the subscriber themselves. How much is too much if it's free value content? Or does that vary?

So, believe me, I'm paying close attention to your advice and I value it.

 

1 email per day? ONE BLOODY EMAIL PER DAY?

 

If your emails are genuinely valuable content, I don't see the problem with sending 1 email per day. It would be different if it is 1 offer per day.

 

It is better to make mailing 1, 2 or a maximum of 3 times a week!
There is no universal magic number of lists that works 100%, therefore, to create an effective email marketing strategy should start with regularity. Make a schedule and send an email to your subscribers every week, and then try to experiment increasing and lowering the frequency but within reason.

 

No. What you do is look at the opening and click rates. Then you give them more of what they click on and if they stop clicking, slow your roll and work on bettering your articles rather than pumping them out more frequently.