Sponsored by

The Code Breaker Newsletter - Issue #023 The Frequency Issue… How Often Should You Contact Your List

Hey Code Breakers,

Welcome to this week's Code Breaker Newsletter. Here, we share the best insights, tips, and stories. Learn how to break the code on your market and unlock your business's potential.

Have you ever wondered how often you should reach out to people who join your list? 

It’s an on going debate amongst experts, but one thing is certain. The frequency with which you contact your list is entirely up to you. That may seem obvious, but the reason is likely not what you think. 

By the time you get to the end of this weeks newsletter, you’ll know why. You also know exactly how often you could be contacting your list, and the benefits it would give you. 

Unfortunately, most B2B sales consultants and NLP experts get it wrong. They’ve built limiting beliefs around emailing their list and miss out on many of the benefits.

The Ideal Frequency Is What You Make It

There are five primary contact frequencies. If you’re like most people I know, it’s highly likely that you have an opinion or position on all of them. And, that’s a problem.

The most common frequencies are:

• Daily 

• Weekly 

• Monthly 

• Sporadic Low Touch 

• Sporadic High Tough 

The frequency and your opinion on a particular frequency are not important. What is important are your goals, and the type of audience you’re looking to build. 

Let’s discuss the purpose and goals of an email list and what it is that you in particular are wanting to build.

Step 1: Take Stock of What You’ve Done So Far

It’s hard to build a house if you don’t know what you’re trying to build. 

If you’ve been building your email list thus far without an email strategy in place it’s likely you have a few problems. 

• Your email list doesn’t quite know what to expect from you. 

• Any changes outside the “acceptable norm” seem to frustrate your list. 

• Your list either feels like every email is just an attempt to get something from them. 

• Or, you’re not on the top of your lists priority list so your open rates are dismal. 

The thing to realize is that you train/shape your audience into what you want it to be. If you build your list based off of daily emails, your list will come to expect daily emails. If you build it off of weekly, they’ll come to expect weekly. 

Conversely, if you build your list based off of presenting offers, your list will be accustomed to receiving offers. If you build it based off of no offers, your list will come to expect that too. 

No matter how you’ve built your list it’s vital to take your existing strategy into account.

Step 2: Decide what specifically you want to build. 

The challenge most people face is not knowing and committing to what they want. 

Many people want a list that opens their emails as soon as they arrive. But to do that, you have to deliver at known intervals, at set times, with high value each time. Most won’t commit to something like this. 

Many people want a list that they can leverage from a sales perspective. Whether that’s a list that sign up for your events, or buys a specific product, that to is based on expectation. If you’re not delivering at a set cadence. If you’re not providing value. If they don’t know what they should expect, then it’s unlikely they’ll open your email. It’s less likely that they’ll take the time to read your email. And, it’s even less likely that they’ll sign up or buy from something contained within your email. 

That’s why it’s crucial to determine what specifically, it is you want from your email list, commit to it, and then build it. 

If you want a list that opens your emails the moment they arrive decide on that. Next decide if you want them to be opening them daily, giving you the freedom to present offers any day of the week. Or, if once a week is an acceptable interval. 

If you want a list that’s made of buyers. Figure out ways to identify them as buyers before they join your list. That could be by offering them a product, being part of someone else’s offering, or sharing that you present offers in your welcome email when they join. 

One thing to keep in mind is that buyers are buyers. Even getting them to buy in via a low cost opportunity is a good option. Secondarily, consider creating an email strategy around vetting anyone who joins your list as a buyer or not buyer by offering them something early on in the process.

Step 3: Be Prepared For What’s To Come

The great news is, you get to determine what specifically you build. I know a guy who emails his list multiple times per day. Has extremely high open rates. And, he has a high purchasing rate from the emails he send. 

It’s not that lists like this can’t be built. It’s that they’re highly unlikely to be built by accident. If you want a list of hungry subscribers, you have to give them a reason to be hungry. If you want a list of highly engaged readers, then it’s important you attract readers. 

In essence, you’ll attract what you put out, so it’s best to reverse engineer it. Decide what you want. Commit to the process. Be aware that you may get some push back, but that’s good. That’s feedback that that particular subscribers, isn’t what you’re looking for. Be ok with them unsubscribing and getting off your list. It’s better to do it now, then to find that out when your backs up against a wall and your emails need to perform.

Keep up with AI

How do you keep up with the insane pace of AI? Join The Rundown — the world’s largest AI newsletter that keeps you up-to-date with everything happening in AI with just a 5-minute read per day.

Sign up with one click.