Welcome to Vol.19 of Email Advice in Your Inbox!

Hi there, friend!

We're back today with more email insights to help you become the best email sender out there.


When it comes to sending emails, do you often wonder how frequently you should be communicating with your audience?

We get asked this question quite a bit.

The trick is finding that sweet spot between your email frequency and cadence. You will, however, first need to understand the difference between the two.

Having shared a brief write-up about this topic on LinkedIn, we thought we'd build on these thoughts for our email friends.


Ready to learn how to get this right for your emails?


 

Here's what you'll learn this week
 

• Balancing email frequency & cadence
   

• This week's top email resources
   

• Email expert practical tip of the week
   

• Smart email senders we're learning from
   

• The fun stuff: We all know someone called Karen
   

• This week's expert feature takes you behind the scenes
  
   

Let's take off on another email journey together 🚀

There's something that eludes many email senders...
 

Finding the exact right number of emails to send to your audience. 

Achieving that "sweet spot" in email is a pretty important driver of your email success.
 

But, it can be tricky, can't it?

It begins with an understanding of what email your email cadence looks like, and how you adjust your email frequency at strategic times.

Often frequency and cadence are used interchangeably, however, they do differ when you consider your email strategy.
 

So what's the difference between email frequency and cadence? Allow us to explain in a bit more detail.

Email frequency is essentially the number of emails sent in a given period.

It could be the number of emails sent per week, month, or quarter. Think of it as the volume of emails sent over the timeline of your email strategy.
 

A common example that many email senders follow is setting a frequency to their weekly or monthly newsletter (our Email Advice in Your Inbox Newsletter follows a twice-monthly newsletter, for example).
 

Your frequency will often depend on the type of content you send, the type of company you are and in which industries you operate.

Many "deal-a-day" e-commerce businesses thrive off a frequency of daily emails, while creators offer daily, weekly or bi-monthly email frequencies.

On the other hand, in many B2B industries, emails sent once monthly or even quarterly work well for their intended purposes.
 

You can select a frequency that makes sense for you, but it's also how you structure the environment supporting your emails, and everything done between your regular emails.
 

That's where email cadence comes in.

Email cadence, in contrast, goes beyond just the number of emails. It's the strategic orchestration of that frequency, encompassing.

This encompasses:
 

• Timing: When you send those emails. Are they daily blasts, or spread out thoughtfully across a week?
   
• Pattern: The sequence of your emails. Is it a one-time welcome email, or a series of nurturing messages spread over weeks?
   
• Segmentation: Tailoring cadence to different audiences. New leads might get a more frequent automated sequence, while established customers receive a monthly newsletter.
   
• Content: The type of emails you send within the cadence. These are generally related to how campaign volumes are increased or decreased during promotional or seasonal periods.
   

In short, frequency is the "how many," while cadence is the strategic "when," "how often," "to whom," and "with what message."

Consider this the choreography of your email marketing efforts if you will.

There are a few ways to nail this!

It takes a bit of prioritisation to get your timing right, but it's worth it for your email retention and conversion efforts.

If you want a place to begin, try these:
 

• Use your preference centre! 
  
  This allows your audience to decide on the frequency and timing of emails they get from you, and the types of content that interest them.
   
• Offer an opt-down instead of just an opt-out. 
  
  This could include reducing email frequency or the choice only to receive certain types of email
   
• Segment based on selected frequency and cadence. 
  
  Not everyone wants to receive emails in the same way. Let your audience choose
   
• Adjust your frequency by where your audience is in their lifecycle. 
  
  If you send campaigns based on where in the customer or product lifecycle your audience is, you'll keep them more relevant.

These are ongoing practices, but you'll also have the added benefit of staying relevant.
 

There is, however, a warning we have to issue you before you potentially become *annoying*

If you're going to keep a strategy for readers to choose which emails to receive, don't make the selection process too tedious, and don't ask them to opt out every time you up your cadence.

There's a time and place for this, such as opting out of Mother's Day or Father's Day emails, or out of religious period campaigns (Christmas, Ramadan, Mercury in retrograde).

If you take it too far, you'll merely add unnecessary choices and potentially cost yourself sales, subscribers and the opportunity to build a relationship with your subscribers.

That said, if you do this well and keep option selection fluid and easy, you'll find that sweet spot by watching closely and caring for your audience's feedback.


Your audience will appreciate your emails more, because sometimes, even less is more.

Email resources of the week

Some cool tools and tips to help you become a better email marketer

Email Expert Practical Tip of the Week

This week's insight is brought to you by email expert and strategic mastermind, Jeff Felten.

Jeff drops a truth bomb we may not want to acknowledge.

Folks are skimming our emails (even this one), so make sure you cater for this in your campaigns.


Ain't nobody got time to read it all 🤷‍♂️

Smart email senders we're learning from

We believe that learning from some of the greatest in the industry is one of the best ways to improve.

Here are three emails we found that followed sound email principles or used innovative strategies to nail their email goals.

Take a look at this week's best 👌
 

Some more (non-email) fun to make your day better

We all know a Karen. Do we, however, know a Sharon? 

We don't often feature adverts outside of email, but this was too good not to share 😂

The guys at The Growth Newsletter by Demand Curve brought this to our attention, and it is gold!

This ad by Chirp uses the typical Karen slang term to create a hilarious YouTube documentary-style video that ties in their product so well.

Who knew? Humour is still in.

These emails are proudly made possible by

Africa's best email service agency and email marketing platform

Before you go - A sneak peek behind the scenes 👀

Des here 🙂

I don't often speak about myself directly in these emails.

I treat Email Advice in Your Inbox as a community. That's a big reason you'll see "we" in most of our articles.

I intend to share more insights behind the creative process of this newsletter, but that will come in due course.
 

In the meantime, I got to share a little peek behind the curtain into some of the inspiration, tools and motivations that drive these emails and my passion for email with our email peeps at Email Love.

If you're keen to get to know me a little better, and put a face to the name, so to speak, behind what you're a pivotal part of, then head on over and give it a few minutes of your time.

I look forward to getting to know you too throughout our email journey together 😊

Before we go! Remember, we help businesses and content creators, just like you, win at email. How? Here are three ways we can help:

Get the guide! We've spent 200+ hours compiling over 250 pages covering everything you need to launch and win at email. Find out more here. 

Sponsor this newsletter! Keen to share your business in front of hundreds of email experts? Get in touch to discuss sponsorships here.

Contribute your knowledge! We're looking to feature experts in future Volumes. Have an idea to share? Let us know here.

PS: If you've been sent this newsletter and want to sign up, hit this link