[FAQ]

Hi,

I handle the communications for a small non-profit in Chicago. We have a newsletter that we’ve been sending out strictly once a month, mainly because we’re afraid of getting a high unsubscribe rate.

But I’m starting to worry that monthly is too infrequent and people are forgetting about us. I see some brands emailing weekly or even more. How do you find the right sending frequency to maximize engagement without burning out your list? Is there a proven ‘best’ frequency, or does it just depend?

[Jeff Bullas]

This is the classic email marketing dilemma.

Short Answer: There is no single ‘best’ frequency; it’s a balance between your audience’s expectations and the quality of the content you can consistently produce. The best frequency is the one you can maintain with high-quality content.

The key is to understand that consistency and value will always beat a high frequency of mediocre content.

There is no magic number. Sending an email daily only works if you have daily content people genuinely want, which is rare. Sending monthly, as you are doing, is fine if it’s a high-value, anticipated round-up, but you are right to worry that it might be too infrequent to build a habit. For most businesses and non-profits, a weekly or fortnightly cadence is often the sweet spot. This is frequent enough to stay top-of-mind but not so frequent that it becomes an impossible burden on your content team.

The real driver of engagement isn’t the frequency; it’s the value of the content formats you’re sending. If you send a weekly email that’s just a wall of plain text asking for money, people will switch off. But if that weekly email contains an inspiring video, a powerful image with a beneficiary’s story, and a concise text update, it’s a valuable piece of content that people will look forward to.

The only way to truly know is to test it. Try moving a small, engaged segment of your list to a fortnightly schedule. Measure the engagement and unsubscribe rates against your main list. The data will tell you if your text, image, and video content is providing enough value to justify the more frequent contact.

Cheers,
Jeff

[Author]

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