Ardath Albee often gets questions about appropriate email frequency for B2B nurturing programs. How much is too much? How little is too little? “And, yep, wait for it—the answer is—it depends,” she writes at the Marketing Interactions blog.
So to help a range of B2B marketers find the right frequency for their email programs, Albee offers advice like this:
Accept that the length of the buy cycle is the length of the buy cycle. “If it’s 8 months, trying to increase the frequency to complete the program in 3 months isn’t going to change that,” she argues. “Buyers will move at their own pace.” Attempts to speed things up with additional email messages will likely annoy your leads and cause campaign fatigue.
Plan with a realistic view of your content-producing capabilities. It takes time to research, write, vet, approve and publish high-quality content. “Map your processes to a timeline so that you can meet the frequency schedule you choose to follow,” Albee advises. “Better to space it out and do it well than to rush to publish based on an artificial schedule you cannot maintain over the long haul.”
Coordinate the timing of email campaigns with each of your company’s departments. “Unless you can isolate your targeted lead list,” she says, “you need to look at the entire universe of email that they could be exposed to from your company and plan accordingly.” You might think you’re giving leads plenty of space, but they’ll feel bombarded if they’re also getting product announcements, corporate newsletters and webinar invitations from others in your organization.
Take the time to clearly map things out. There’s no simple formula for correct frequency, and yours depends on a host of variables—internal and external.
Source: Marketing Interactions.