E-mail Newsletters: How Often Is Often Enough?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Saturday, 4 of August , 2007 at 6:49 am

The question comes up from time to time, “How often is often enough for sending out a company newsletter?”

Well, I send mine out once a week. At the bottom of this post you’ll see a sign up box. I encourage you to sign up. I send out a summary of my blog posts for the week every issue. That way, if you missed any you can catch up.

Now that the shameless plug is out of the way, how often is often enough for a company newsletter? There’s really no good answer. But there is a definite answer to a related question, “How often is not often enough?”

Your newsletter should communicate to your target audience as often as is necessary to convey the information that is helpful to them. Some very useful newsletters are published daily. That may not be the way you want to go, however. Daily newsletters can be time consuming and if you don’t have the time to do it or the money to pay someone to do it for you then you could drop the ball on a few issues and that won’t bode well for your credibility.

Many successful newsletters are published weekly. I like weekly because it keeps my name in front of my target market. They won’t forget me after a week and if they haven’t heard from me all week then I’m right on time to remind them of the things they need to know and out of their hair enough that I’m not a major nuisance (humor me, please!).

There are a couple of more options. You could publish your newsletter every other week or monthly. Nothing wrong with either of those. But you really should put some thought into this how often thing because if you go too long without communicating with your target then they’ll forget about you. Some newsletters come out twice a week, which is cool, but I prefer once a week. That’s good enough for most businesses, I think.

Monthly seems too long to make my customers wait to hear what I have to say. During that time they could find another newsletter and another service provider altogether. If you send out a monthly newsletter, that means you only communicate with customers and prospective customers 12 times a year. Since it takes about 7 hits before a person acts on a message you’ll have to market to a person at least half a year before you turn them into a customer - and that’s a long shot if they’ve found a newsletter they like just as much that comes out more often.

The bottom line on newsletters is that they need to come out often, but not too often. Weekly is best for most, but semi-weekly or bi-weekly is adequate. I think if you go longer than two weeks for most electronic newsletters then you’ll get tossed more often than get read. Another thing you should think about is what day you want your newsletter to hit your prospect’s inbox, but that’s another discussion altogether. For now, have a great day!

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

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