How Many Email Newsletters is Too Many?

On the 72nd episode of Marketing Interruption, Andrew Maff discusses how e-commerce sellers can figure out when to slow down email newsletters, whether promotional or informational, especially as the busy holiday season approaches.

Tune in and enjoy today's interruption!

TODAY'S EPISODE:

00:35

Hello, and welcome to episode number 72 of the marketing interruption podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Maff. Doe. And today I'm going to talk to you about how many newsletters is too many. please, for the love of God, stop sending so many newsletters. So one of the reasons I wanted to do this when I talked about this, like when we first started this podcast, and I did finally end up unsubscribing from them. I don't know if you listen to the podcast in the beginning, you'll know what I'm talking about. But there's a I'm a big fan of cigars, there was cigar company that I liked, that I was able to ship stuff here because at the time we were in the pandemic I couldn't, couldn't go anywhere. So trying to figure out how to hang out at home. How do I get one? So I found one online. And this is not an exaggeration when I tell you that I had on average 2.5 emails from them every day. And that is not they didn't send me half an email. It's like sometimes I got two sometimes I got four and it turned out to 2.5 I sat down to the math is I thought this was hilarious. Two and a half emails a day is barking ridiculous for newsletters that isn't saying don't ever do that. Now, one newsletter a week. Still pretty bad, I wouldn't do that.

01:43

So, you know, I think uh, I think a few weeks ago, I know we did this one where we talked about like ideas for newsletters. We talked about like promotional ones, or company announcements or just kind of a blog roundup or something like that. And if you can get on like a regular basis of like a blog Roundup, let's say once a month, or if you're doing enough blog posts maybe once or twice a month, and then maybe one promotional email, like every couple months unless there's like a holiday or something around. That, to me is kind of the perfect sweet spot. Unless you can really segment your audience, then it's a little bit different. So for example, you know, we've worked with apparel companies where they'll send newsletters to certain aspects of their their customer base a little bit more often than they will some others just because of the metrics we're seeing, or we've segmented out in the winter doing bathing suits for the south, and not so much up north. So we'll segment them out. So maybe we'll do another one that month to the north and kind of change it. But usually, if you're doing just like a blast out to everyone, once or twice a month is more than enough. And the reason I wanted to bring this up is because obviously we're in q4 now, and people are notorious for getting really obnoxious, especially around Black Friday, Cyber Monday. And they would start to send like an email like I would say they'll start usually like two weeks before Black Friday, Cyber Monday.

03:09

If you're really desperate, you'll even do one like right in the beginning of the month, then they'll do one like a week before Black Friday, Cyber Monday, then they'll do one the day before or not, then they'll do one the Monday and say this weekend. Don't forget, then they'll do one on Wednesday and say Don't forget Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Some people do it on Thanksgiving and say, tomorrow's the day. And then they send you one Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. And then God forbid someone is friggin doing a lot longer than that. And now they're sending me an after that is an obscene amount of newsletters and unnecessary. The what you have to think about is your brand is fragile. You don't want to over send so many newsletters to the point where annoying people think about if someone if like Mormons were coming to your door every day to try to convert you that would drive me insane. Um, I will tolerate it for like once a year is fine. But if they're at my door every day trying to convert me, I'm gonna snap eventually, just like I don't want you emailing me every day to purchase something if I want to make a purchase, I will you also have to think that you're going to belittle your brand. So essentially what I mean by that is, if I'm a if I'm a consumer, and I know that I want to buy this product, and I maybe buy it on a regular basis. If you constantly are sending promotional emails, I'm never going to pay full price because I know that you have a deal all the time. Or I know that your your actual prices after a while are BS. So I'm going to give an example I'm even going to drop a name because I don't care if they find me. Fans edge or fanatics or nfl.com or any of those guys big Steelers fan. I'm always trying to buy like new stuff for whatever the hell we win and I go Screw it. I'm buying a hat and they always have like on a weekly basis. It's like 60% off, or spend $50 and get free shipping plus $20 back and it's almost every week. And then I get an email from one of those guys, whether it's nfl.com, or fanatic or fan edge, or God knows what the other ones are.

05:14

Got to be at least two or three times a day, and it's obscene and noxious wire, I've started unsubscribe from him. And what is really starting to tell me is, I'm never gonna pay full price because you always have sales. So I'll just sit around and wait, I don't need it right now. And then I also now know that your numbers are bullshit, they're your prices are complete fucking lie. So if they're not telling me the accurate price number from the beginning, they don't have that much trust in it. Unfortunately, they've developed this friggin monopoly, so I'm kind of stuck with them. But in other in other companies, you know, it's something you kind of have to keep in mind. So sending out too many newsletters can really start to belittle your brand, especially if you do it on a consistent basis. You on the blog roundups, I like consistency. But on a promotional side, having a sale every month on the last week of the month is great. But then that means that your third week of the month, people are probably not going to purchase with you as much because they know that the following week, you're gonna have a sale. So you have to keep that kind of stuff in mind. You can probably send out more if you segment your audience a little bit, change your message around. But I would definitely say slow down the amount of newsletters if you have any questions on how many newsletters or ideally promotional newsletters or blog roundups or something like that, that you should be sending on a regular basis. shoot me an email marketing interruption@bluetuskr.com tell me what you're selling. Maybe Shoot, shoot me your domain, and I'll take a look at it. And I will tell you, you should be sending this amount. Usually it's pretty black and white.

06:45

I would hope someone knows by now yes, you can test it. And yes, you may have numbers to prove me wrong. But I will typically stand by my gut. And then I will look at the data with you. Send it my way happy to make a judgement. But that's all I want to go over today. Rate review, subscribe, all that fun stuff and I will talk to you tomorrow.