Having a sending schedule for your email channel means that you are consistently engaging with your subscribers. A sending schedule is a calendar of important topics or promotions you want to inform your audience about. In many cases it becomes a living, breathing thing that adapts as you evolve your business. Your sending schedule should always remain a priority in your email marketing strategy.
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
A spreadsheet is like a garden. If you water and maintain it, it will blossom. If you never look at it again, it will become overgrown and ugly. A sending schedule for email communications is your garden. It is how you create and nurture relationships with your subscribers, who are ultimately your customer base.
It is also a way to keep yourself accountable. There can be a lot of pressures and demands on entrepreneurs and sitting down to regularly write an email, unfortunately, doesn't often rank high. It is a channel that takes attention and consistency to grow. Writing and following a sending schedule will help with accomplishing at least one goal in email marketing: actually sending a message.
What are you sending them?
The importance of quality over quantity in email cannot be undersold. The first step in crafting a sending schedule is to establish a blend of what your subscribers want to receive and how that can benefit your business. There's a lot of options out there. It can be overwhelming but it's important to work thru.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Fundamentally, having a Brand Bible in place helps with establishing tone and narrative for your email copywriter or manager.
Your email content should match your overall brand tone on the website and social media. If you are straightforward and dry on your website and social media, you wouldn't necessarily plan to send an email to your subscriber base about your favorite XYZ but if you are chatty and casual on your website and social media, you also wouldn't send them a long email about the data behind why your product out performs competition on the market.
Once you decide what you want to send them (i.e. newsletter, promotion, transactional style emails) you should start to consider your 'balance'. Are you leaning too heavily on one type of email? Are you leaving sales on the table by focusing on narrative in newsletter more than promotion? Or, are you costing sales by focusing only on the 'hard line' and not building a warmth of trust with your audience? It can be a tricky scale to balance.
There is no perfect answer for how often you should be targeting your email audience. There is only experimentation and results to drive decision making, and that comes over a period of time.
When are you sending it?
Sending frequency is vital for list health in email marketing. It is important to avoid email fatigue or list burn out. This can be done by regularly monitoring KPIs such as Open Rate and Click Rate. You'll want to keep an eye on your brand's deliverability score, internally, as those metrics aren't released by the likes of Google or Yahoo. Your best bet is to keep a 'healthy' Open Rate and Click Rate and maintain a good growth rate to your unsubscribers.
Photo by Mathyas Kurmann on Unsplash
Consider A/B or split testing when in the week and even when in the day you send your messaging. As your list grows you won't have a huge insight because of segment size but overtime you'll be able to test more diversely and determine different results. Once you're happy with the performance of a type of email at a time or date, keep with that timing and track the results to monitor effectiveness. That is to also say defining a goal is important in email marketing, and it's recommended not to focus as much on ROI or revenue as Open Rate or Click Rate.
How are you planning for the future?
Your inbox is probably full of emails from brands about the latest minor holiday. Do you ever check your email on Easter or International Women's Day and see subject line after subject line about that occasion? How can a car company possibly have something to say about the Eclipse?! They don't, really. What they have is a date in the calendar where there's a fixed topic they can reach out to you addressing. When you are designing your email sending schedule, look to the next three months and see what events or holidays are coming up and plan to send on or around those dates. Try to anticipate the turns in the road ahead of you, before you come up to them.
Photo by Matt Duncan on Unsplash
For example, if you are a brand in the business of gifting and a major gifting holiday (i.e. Valentines, Mother's Day, or Christmas) is on the horizon, consider how long a lead time there is between order date and the customer receiving the product. You can and should start marketing in advance of those dates and instead use those dates as 'newsletter' or special promotion opportunities.
There's tons to consider with how you design your sending schedule but remember that it should also be a planning tool and while it can be tweaked, it should be followed.
Summary:
When you are struggling to start email marketing as a channel a sending schedule can hold you accountable. Decide what messaging you want to share with subscribers and when you will send it out, by looking at KPIS and A/B testing results. Always plan three months in advance in your sending schedule and hold fast to special dates but consider how you can dynamically market in the time before those events.
Get in Touch.
Have a question about how to create a sending schedule for your brand? Send us an email at liz@litirmarketing.com today.
Comentarios