Let’s dive deeper into what an email cadence is and lay out the key principles for structuring one successfully.
The success of an email campaign can depend on the effectiveness of the cadence.
If it's too intrusive, obnoxious, or lacking direction, you may miss opportunities to guide leads through the buying process.
If potential customers feel harassed or confused by constant, irrelevant advertising database newsletters and promotions, they probably won’t stick around to hear what you have to say.
Email Marketing Frequency
In a recent HubSpot Blogs survey of 300 marketers, a whopping 95% indicated that their email marketing strategy was effective in 2021. Let’s take a look at where (and when) they’re seeing success.
Email Frequency
Emails sent on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays get the most engagement.
Marketing emails sent on Tuesdays from 9am to 12pm have the highest engagement, followed by those sent on Mondays and Wednesdays at the same time.
The weekend is a dead zone for engagement: Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays have the lowest open and click rates.
Another study by Databox found that 33% of marketers send emails weekly, while 26% send emails “several times a month.” Additionally, 63% said they adjust their sending frequency for less engaged subscribers.
graph showing how frequently marketers send emails
Of course, some marketers send emails more than once a week, while others send less. As you'll see later, the "right" frequency isn't an exact formula, but depends on your business and your audience.
Here are some examples and best practices you can employ to ensure your next campaign's email cadence is as good as it can be.
Email Cadence Examples
An example of email cadence is tailoring the timing of your messages to appeal to a specific demographic.
For example, let's say you run a sunglasses company and you want to target an 18-25 year old demographic through an email campaign.
Your research indicates that consumers in your target demographic typically check their email first thing in the morning, between 6 and 9 am.
As a result, you send your emails at 5:45 am, so they are among the first your consumers see when they check their inboxes.
Another example is tailoring messaging frequency to a particular demographic.
Let’s say you want your sunglasses company to appeal to consumers aged 55 and older.
Your consumer research shows that shoppers in that demographic prefer to receive emails less frequently. To increase engagement, you decide to send them every two weeks.
Email Cadence Best Practices
►Understand your goals and your client's mindset
What do you expect from your email cadence? You need to understand where you’re trying to drive your leads and customers. Are you looking to improve traffic to your blog? Drive e-commerce sales? Schedule meetings? Close deals?
An email cadence guides buyers from point A to point B. You can’t do that if you have no idea what “point B” is. Your end goal will dictate the strategy behind your cadence.
If you’re trying to increase traffic to your blog, you stand to lose more subscribers than you would if you were trying to court a bunch of leads to schedule demos.
If you’re sending emails just for the sake of sending them, your cadence will be aimless and random. Plus, you’ll waste a lot of time and resources on campaigns that go nowhere.
