Welcome back to the third in the Smart Send Authority series.
If you haven't caught up with this series before, I really recommend going back to read the first two blogs. That will tell you what to send and how to write it. That's the bedrock of your email program.
The Smart Send Authority Series #1
The Smart Send Authority Series #2
Today, we're going to talk about when to send your emails. My clients ask me this all the time and get this answer:
It Depends (But Here's Your Framework)
There are three rules that you should apply to your email marketing. This applies to both your automations and to your standard campaigns - that's your newsletters and your sales.
They should be consistent, responsive, and simple.
Beyond that, you also need to segment by interest and behaviour. Note; I don’t talk about demographics. That’s because you should have nailed your demographic through your lead magnet. Everyone who comes into your world will have already been filtered by that attraction.
Rule #1: Whatever You Decide to Send, Be Consistent About It
So that means you're going to be consistent when you send your automations out. You're going to be consistent when you send your newsletters out.
And you're going to have consistent, repetitive cycles for all your sales promotions.
A recipe for burn-out and failed sales is to send out one email, forget about it and do something next week. You need to write about it repeatedly.
Even if you're sick of talking about the latest tier or your big coaching offer, your audience won't be.
They've got a lot more going on in their life than you. When you accept that you're a very small part of their lives, the fear of over-promotion disappears.
That means that you can push it one, two, three, four times. I know of some people that do launches and if they're pushing a specific offer, they will do it twelve times, both via email and social.
They'll literally have a tick list that they go down to push one more time.
If the audience gets upset, just remember they have the unsubscribe button. Or you can give the option to opt out.
Nevertheless, you do have to mention it that much because people are busy. Inboxes get swamped. They don't see you on social media because the algorithm's fighting it. They may have been sick or on holiday and pressed “mass delete” on their return.
You can’t predict when people read, react or buy. You can keep showing up consistently.
Rule #2: Be Responsive (This Kills Any Spam Guilt)
If you're having any guilt at all about being pushy or spammy, being responsive should drown out that guilt. It should cancel it immediately.
What I'm seeing now in most email platforms is a way that you can do smart emails as part of the series.
So in HubSpot, for example, you can do a dynamic email series. The minute someone replies, or clicks on the link or books a meeting, you pull them out of the sequence and into a new one where you go one-to-one with messaging.
Because they've indicated positive response.
You can do the same in MailChimp. When someone replies - don't go for open rates because they can be suspect now - but if they click on a specific link, or they reply, or they respond in some way, you can pull them out of that automation.
And the same in Klaviyo, and the same in most of the others.
You can basically make the automation responsive so they go into a smaller pool where you can give them one-to-one attention.
Yes, there are technical tricks to that, and this is not the place for them. Please reach out personally if that's something you want, because it's way too much for this blog.
But going back to responsiveness, that's the core of great customer service. Let people feel seen and know they matter.
You've stepped close to making that sale and having another fantastic person as a client.
Rule #3: Keep It Simple (I Have This Written in Big Letters Across My Screen)
It's very easy to go down a rabbit hole. "Oh, I've got to talk about this, and I've got to talk about that, and I've got to talk about that."
No.
Keep it simple. One email, one product, one buying sequence, and that's it. You can talk about it in a dozen different ways, but the focus remains the same.
Ironically, it’s also a lot easier to batch-create and schedule your emails and promotions when you are talking about just one thing. You can test, tweak and replicate across different channels.
Keep it simple and your sanity will thank you.
Segment by Interest and Behaviour (The Night and Day Difference)
The next thing, which I really recommend you do, and this is what I'm doing with my clients, is segment by interest and behaviour.
I recently ran this on a database of 25,000 people, and I deliberately split the audience into two parts with the client's blessing.
Audience One: People who had expressed an interest in that offer before. They'd opened it, clicked, or engaged with that business, going back about six months.
Audience Two: Everybody else.
I didn't bother with demographics. It was purely on behaviour.
My god, the difference was night and day.
So audience one was about a quarter of the size of audience two. I admit the smaller audiences do help, but we're still talking well over 5,000 people doing this.
Audience One Results:
- Click rate: around 6%
- Open rate: over 60% (because we deliberately targeted them based on mild interest from the past 6 months)
Audience Two Results:
- Click rate: just under 1%
- Open rate: 18%
So it wasn't bad. It's still worth doing as we got the promotion out there. But you can also see the power of segmentation.
If you want to reward yourself and your audience, pay attention to your data. Lean into people who are responsive.
The Automation Cycle: First Hour, 24 Hours, First Week
Here are some tips for how to set up your automations and then how to structure your content calendar.
For your automations, the first hour, the first 24 hours and the first week are the most important because that is the ever-decreasing expanse of attention you're going to get.
Within the First Hour:
They're going to be most engaged within the first hour. Your first email should go out instantly after they sign up. It’s also why we have upsells and bumps on the sales pages.
You see it all the time. McDonald's is really good at this: "Do you want to supersize this?"
You can do the same with your content. You can say: "Congratulations. You bought X course. Or you've downloaded the subscription. Would you like to add this for free? Or would you like to extend this by two weeks at this price?"
It's really simple. It's on the offer page right there. You get a second shot with the upsell bump when you also email them, be it the receipt or the download instructions.
So for your welcome sequence, you can say: "Congratulations. You've got this lovely freebie or lead magnet. Would you like to do XYZ as well?"
Make it easy for them to say yes.
Within 24 Hours:
Do a follow-up. This varies depending upon what you've given them in the original email. What caused them to sign up in the first place.
It can be a simple follow-up. It can be an additional short video. It can be an extra cheat sheet.
Give them a reason again to open, to click, to say yes.
You can see how this is going. It's like a cookie breadcrumb trail, isn't it? Everyone gets a delicious end result.
Within One Week:
Remember, at this point,their attention is fading. Your people have got other things on their mind.
Draw them back into your world. Make sure that you send them enough emails that they don't get annoyed but also equally that they do stay interested.
Generally, it's more than you think.
You can easily send three emails in the first week. Easily.
If you're running an intense promotion that has a fairly specific time limit, send more.
At the end of the day, if they get really annoyed, they can switch off. But you can't go wrong with experimenting and testing the limits of what you need to promote and when they need to hear from you.
Your Content Calendar Should Reflect Three Things
The content calendar, especially in the B2B world, should reflect three things.
- Your Buyer's Cycle
You know how long it typically takes to get from someone who enters your world to someone who wants to buy. Who's expressed an interest to buy from you.
And that could be anything from one week to six months.
Now, with B2B, it's complicated by the fact that there's usually more stakeholders, and it's usually higher prices. So you need to think about that.
- Your Own Sales Cycle
What you need to sell, how often and when.
So make sure that you group it around high points of the year and make it easy for yourself to sell. Have those promotions in place. Be ready for that.
If you do want a flash sale, have everything lined up beforehand. Things of that sort.
- Your Own Content Output
This is the key, which most people forget.
This is going to depend partly on what you sell. If you're an insurance company that sells insurance once a year, you're not going to want to email your list more than quarterly.
They want to know their premiums are up to date, they want to know they're getting the best price for it, so they'll always open your emails about premiums or to check prices, but they probably won't open the other stuff.
Nonetheless, knowing that you've got a fresh, up-to-date audience is necessary, which is why I generally say: if in doubt, go quarterly.
Make sure you're doing this maintenance. That people are still on your list, that the email address is still in place and intact, and that you still have a decent deliverability reputation with senders.
If you would like to see your options for a quarterly B2B plan, check out this article.
