How to Consistently Send Emails as a Small Business (Without Feeling Spammy)

Want to know the biggest mistake I see small businesses making with email marketing? Not sending enough emails.

I get the sentiment. You don't want to be like the [insert company here] and annoy your subscribers with daily emails. So, instead, you tell people you only send emails when you have something important to say, which turns out to be once a month, if that.

But this tactic actually does more harm than good. By barely sending emails, you're missing out on so many sales and customer relationship-building opportunities.

That’s why today, we’re discussing how often to send email marketing and how to do so consistently without feeling like an icky salesperson.

The problem with sending too many emails

Let’s start by talking about what everyone’s trying to avoid- the dreaded too many emails. This is a legit concern. We’ve all been on some big company’s email list where they send campaigns daily, sometimes more. It’s exhausting.

This is why you don’t want to send too many emails. It can overwhelm your subscribers, reduce opens and clicks, and eventually, lead to a mass subscriber exodus. It's hard to make sales when no one wants to read your 10th email of the week.

The problem with sending too few emails

Now we come to the other side of the coin. Sending too many emails is bad, but so is sending too few. But why?

First off, because people will forget you. If you only send emails once a month, or worse, once a quarter, people will feel confused and maybe even annoyed when your email appears in their inbox. The confused mind says "no", and the annoyed one says "unsubscribe", neither of which you want.

Secondly, if people don't see you frequently, they won’t buy. There's an old marketing rule that customers need to see your message at least seven times before they buy. If you’re only sending an email once or twice a month, it could be almost a year before you make sales, and you don’t want that.

The optimal email frequency

So, what’s the best email frequency for small businesses?

I hate to say it, but it depends. Everyone can roll their eyes now. I know you were hoping for a concrete answer, but factors like list size, your business model, time of year, and more can affect send frequency.

That being said, in general, you should be sending between 1 and 3 emails a week. This gets you in front of your customer regularly without being overwhelming.

Don't panic. This might sound like a lot, but I promise, it's doable. We’ll get to the tips for sending emails consistently in a minute, so keep reading.

Figuring out how often to send email marketing

If there's no perfect amount of emails, how can you figure out what works best for your business? Experiment.

Choose a starting frequency, such as two emails a week, and run it for 1-3 months. Then, take a look at your statistics, especially clicks, opens, and unsubscribes. Write all the information down.

Then, try either increasing or decreasing your frequency and see what happens. Do your opens go up or down? Are you getting more interest or more unsubscribes? Keep doing this until you find the frequency that gets results you're happy with.

Here are a few more tips to help you:

• Aim to send one email a week, no matter what size your business is. Selling is part of running a business, and if people don't understand that, you don't want them on your list anyway.

• Larger businesses with bigger lists should send more emails. You should also implement segmentation to keep your offers relevant to the recipient.

• If you're running a big sale, it's okay to send more emails. People will understand, and you can give them an opt-out link if they're not interested in reading every email.

How to send emails consistently (without spamming people)

All right, it’s time to dive into the section you’ve been waiting for. How to send one, two, or three emails a week without feeling like you’re constantly selling. Because, yes, it is possible.

Make a plan

The first key to sending email consistently is a plan. As the old saying goes, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.

A plan is essential because:

• It holds you accountable. No more skipping emails because you forgot or ran out of time.

• It lets you balance what you send between sales and engagement emails (more on that in the next section).

• It makes it easier to track metrics and see if you're meeting your goals.

• It lets you align your email marketing with any big holidays, sales, or launches you have coming up.

Making a plan doesn't have to be hard. Take a paper calendar or Google Calendar and write down which days you want to send an email and what topic it’s going to be about. To make it easier on yourself, pick the same day(s) and time every week, like Mondays at 3 pm.

Diversify what you send

Here's the secret to sending weekly emails without annoying subscribers. You need to send emails that aren't selling anything.

That's not to say that you shouldn't send sales emails. That's a huge part of email marketing. But you need to send other types of emails too, like:

• Educational emails (how to use our product)

• Engagement emails (customer testimonials)

• Entertainment emails (which candle are you?)

These types of emails show your subscribers you don't just see them as walking credit cards, but as real people. It also helps build the know, like, and trust factors, which you need when people are ready to buy.

Schedule in advance

Whatever you do, don’t wait until the day before (or worse, the day of) your email goes out to write it. That’s how you send sub-par emails, burn yourself out, and give up on your email goals before seeing results.

Instead, I recommend writing all your emails for the month a month ahead of time. (Which you should be able to do if you have a good marketing plan in place.) Then, schedule them all to go out on the proper days.

Subscribers may not notice a difference, but you'll find it's much easier to be consistent on your end. You also won't end up panicked because you forgot to send an email or tell people about your awesome new product.

Sending even one email a week might seem like a lot at first. But I promise sending frequent, but not overwhelming, emails won’t hurt your business. In fact, you'll probably see more engagement and sales than before.

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