Happy Mailman Day!

For people who are on many discussion mailing lists, the first of every month is “Mailman Day”, and has been for nearly a decade.
Mailman is the most widely used mailing list manager for discussion lists and, by default, it sends email to all subscribers on the first of the month reminding them that they’re still subscribed to the list and how to unsubscribe. This is really useful, as I’m on some mailing lists that haven’t had any traffic other than the reminders in a couple of years, but it does mean that my mailbox looks like this this morning:

Discussion lists sending reminders is a close parallel to our usual recommendations for bulk mailing lists to send something at least monthly, so that recipients remember who you are and that they’re subscribed – and so that recipients who have vanished bounce that mail, so you can eventually remove them from your mailing list. (We’re not suggesting that you send a “this is a reminder” mail monthly – create some real content and send that).
Mailman Day also means that if you’re sending mail to a technical/internet-savvy demographic and you choose to send it first thing in the morning of the first of the month, you’re competing with a lot of noise in your recipient inbox. Unless you’re mailing daily it might be worth shifting a day forward or backward to avoid that conflict.

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Less can be more and more can be more

The Wall Street Journal reports that some large retailers are scaling back their email marketing. Benefits of sending less mail include higher open rates, lower unsubscribe rates and an increase in sales.

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The frequency conundrum

What is the perfect frequency to send mail? Is it daily, weekly, monthly, hourly, minutely (is that even a word?) or randomly? Any number of experts will give you a definitive answer to this question, but I don’t believe there is a single answer.
The frequency recipients will respond to depends on the type of mail, the recipient expectations, the sender and a host of other factors.
For one example look at the mail sent by social networks. Many people, myself included, will accept dozens of emails a day telling me someone wrote on my Facebook wall or retweeted something I said or wants to link to my network on LinkedIn. Another example is when I’m traveling or waiting to pick up someone who is, I am thrilled to receive multiple updates an hour from the airline.
This willingness to receive frequent commercial or bulk emails doesn’t necessarily translate to marketing emails. When Sur la Table started sending double digit amounts of email a week, I down-subscribed, and had they not let me pick an acceptable-to-me frequency I would have unsubscribed completely.
A lot of marketing experts insist that mailers don’t send frequently enough. That increasing frequency increases ROI. What a lot of people miss are all the caveats in the fine print. In their minds, increasing frequency goes hand in hand with increased segmentation, targeting and recipient specific emails.
The idea isn’t simply to mail the entire list more frequently but to mail those who are more open to increased frequency. This is an idea I wholeheartedly support.

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Too much? Too little?

Mark Brownlow (who I haven’t linked to nearly enough lately) has insightful commentary on the frequency question.
I really don’t think marketers should be afraid of sending email frequently. There are people who appreciate a lot of email. But I do think marketers should be careful when sending frequently. Good delivery is all about your audience and what you have to offer them.
As Mark says:

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