Newsletter Frequency

Daily, bi-daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly,..

[mcmrob]

I run a daily updated site and am considering starting a newsletter to keep my visitors updated on the latest additions via e-mail; a service I think people will appreciate. That's not the problem. Problem is, I don't know how often I should be sending out this newsletter. Since the site is updated daily, I figured I should also send out the newsletter on a daily basis. Now I'm starting to doubt that choice. Will my visitors appreciate a daily mailing? Will the newsletter still be effective if I send it daily, compared to a weekly or monthly newsletter? Will I grow more loyalty with a daily newsletter? Lots of questions and worries are going through my head. I can't switch to a daily newsletter if people signed up for a weekly newsletter.

I guess the easiest way to find out is to place a poll on the site, which I'll probably do, but I was hoping some of you could give me some insights into the matter. Anything (on topic) is welcome.

[Lord Majestic]

Weekly is the best -- this is based on professional opt-in (yes really!) email marketing of a B2C site to 500k subscribers.

[etechsupport]

Yes newsletter frequency is weekly good.I would suggest you should make it knowledge based and interesting too.

[hannamyluv]

Studies have shown that most consumers prefer a 2 - 3 week cycle on your emails. Weekly can overwhelm a customer and get your email relegated to a junk box, but for some groups or if you make the email interesting enough, it might work.

I would suggest splitting your lists into 2 groups, one to mail weekly and one to mail bi-weekly. Watch carefully things like open rate, bounce rate, opt-out and response. After about 6 months see which lists performed the best overall.

I saw a test done like this and at first the weekly email did great. But the opt-out and bounce rate were exactly the same whether I mailed once a week or once every two weeks. I was loesing 2X the customers from the weekly mailed lists, which is not healthy for long term growth. Then the response on the weekly dropped off after awhile as did the open rate. Keep an eye on such things. The bottom line is not the only line you should be watching.

[mcmrob]

Thanks for the comments. They're much appreciated, and very helpful.

The poll so far shows that 40% says daily, 40% says monthly, and 20% says weekly. Poll hasn't been up for too long. Interesting though that most people choose for daily or monthly; it's quite a big difference in frequency.

[Frequent]

Have you considered RSS?

As far as newsletters go weekly is more than sufficient. If they want to be updated daily go RSS.

Freq---

[mcmrob]

Have you considered RSS?

I have, and I'm going to introduce a feed soon. But right now I see that as an extra, not as something that replaces the newsletter.

[uhwebs]

I have a site and also send out a newsletter; In my case, monthly.
After the newsletter is sent out I notice a spike in traffic (and generally AS income) from it.

I too have the same question-- is it better to send it out monthly, or bi-monthly? I don't update every day but like to send one big e-news issue at the end of the month that details the new additions.

[mcmrob]

I would suggest splitting your lists into 2 groups, one to mail weekly and one to mail bi-weekly. Watch carefully things like open rate, bounce rate, opt-out and response. After about 6 months see which lists performed the best overall.

I think I'm going to try this approach with the frequencies: daily, weekly and monthly. One of these might outperform the others, but in the end I'll probably keep them all. Why stick to one frequency if you can offer several?