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My company sends a newsletter once a month. We're selling roasted coffee. This single day account for 20-30% of our monthly revenue. In fact email is our single

My company sends a newsletter once a month. We're selling roasted coffee. This single day account for 20-30% of our monthly revenue. In fact email is our single best performing channel. Hope this info helps. EDIT: I should also add that we're combining every newsletter with some "offer" e.g. we make a new blend or roast couple of bags of some coffee we don't typically stock. We're also keeping it very personal - it's literally just a plain text email (we've got this new thing on stock, here's what we've been up to and here's some new content on blog - have a great month.)

lancesells 4y ago
Sounds like you should switch to sending two a month.
- dawnerd 4y ago
  As a consumer, please no. Way too many places go from sending one email to once a week to suddenly every single day... and some local restaurants decided multiple per day would work.
- yoyohello13 4y ago
  This is how it starts. Before you know it, they are spamming their mailing list every day.
- michalu 4y ago
  So far we found once a month to be our sweet spot. Majority of customers buy their monthly supply in one shopping session and this is a way to prompt some of them + reactivate old customers / staled customers and convert blog subscribers. I think the next step is to segment our customer/subscriber base and send at various frequency. But it's also a "side-hustle" so it takes effort :)
  - zoltrix303 4y ago
    I'm curious, did you try a subscription model for your customers? Maybe you could even target to ones you see ordering every once in a while and offer them a monthly bag + a small incentive for the commitment?
    - michalu 4y ago
      Thank you it's something in the plans but I've been too lazy to set up the billing for subscription.
- StevePerkins 4y ago
  I assume that returns are diminishing, and turn negative past a certain point. If a company that I'm interested in sends me an email once per month, then I generally don't mind it. I might even appreciate it. Send it every two weeks, and you're training me to tune out and usually click the "Delete" button without looking at the content. Send it weekly, and you've irritated me enough to have the motivation to unsubscribe. Maybe just flag you as spam if the "Unsubscribe" link isn't immediately easy to find. Certainly tarnished my view of your brand. I don't know where the "sweet spot" is, but monthly sounds about right.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    Agreed, but depends on the content. For things like this, I'm assuming they can tell what people who do buy actually buy, and we might assume it's enough coffee for a few weeks or so. I do get some newsletters weekly and do not mind at all, because the info is new/fresh/useful. For 'buy some stuff', unless I'm buying every week (which I don't beyond food) likely less is more.
    - missedthecue 4y ago
      Really, it just depends on a the value you provide in your emails. If Apple sent me 40% discount promo codes, I'd LOVE weekly emails. Ha!
  - mbesto 4y ago
    > I assume that returns are diminishing, and turn negative past a certain point. Which is why you should test it. Jan '22 -> once a month Feb '22 -> twice a month Mar '22 -> thrice a month Jan '23 -> once a month Feb '23 -> twice a month Mar '23 -> thrice a month Compare and contrast for both unsubscribe rate and conversion.
    - jacobobryant 4y ago
      Probably better to use a split test. Segment the list into two segments (via random assignment). Send one segment two emails per month, send the other one per month. Compare the segments.
- argiopetech 4y ago
  Not in the coffee business, but I doubt those who like coffee enough to receive a coffee newsletter need to purchase twice a month. It's very likely that doubling the touch points with consumers would lead to ad fatigue. This said, it's possible that once a month isn't the right interval. 3 weeks or 5 might be better. Analysis would need to be done.
- bsedlm 4y ago
  sounds like you want more better faster for less cheaper and quicker.
- wil421 4y ago
  If you send annoying emails to my inbox I’m ignoring them and eventually will unsubscribe or mark them as spam.
- legitster 4y ago
  Are you my VP of marketing?
- layer8 4y ago
  I know an online retailer who sends a newsletter every day, if not multiple newsletters per day. It’s insane. Apparently they have enough customers who don’t unsubscribe that it works for them.
- killingtime74 4y ago
  You are management material
- atoav 4y ago
  I have one company that I like to receive mails from and it is because I actually care about the content in their mails — it is actually interesting stuff, not marketing bs. If they sent me an email twice a week I would unsubscribe after a month. Every company that tries to waste my time like that looses a bit of my respect, period.
- leros 4y ago
  There is a fantasy themed candle company that emails me daily. My god it annoys me, but I also I buy so many candles. At my day job, we did a test around sending more emails and longer emails. Initially the more we sent, the more our core metrics and NPS went up. Then as we sent even more, our NPS starting dropping but our core metrics kept going up. It was rather interesting. There is definitely a balance to be had but my takeaway is that annoying your users a bit might be ok for business.
pdksam 4y ago
What service do you use for templatizing amd sending the emails? Are they personalized?
- michalu 4y ago
  We simply send emails using gmail API. They are personalized a bit, I run everything from jupyter notebook. Not a big fan of services like mailchimp. We keep personal approach so I prefer to land in primary inbox vs "promotions" as most customers are businesses and we've had exchanges over the email. We're just under 2k which is the daily limit for gmail, will start using SMTP with it since that gets you 10k emails a day.
  - bfors 4y ago
    I'd be very interested to hear more details about your jupyter notebook setup for sending emails
    - michalu 4y ago
      It's embarrassingly primitive, we export all existing subscribers into csv from our CRM, I load it into pandas dataframe and send using simple for loop + gmail api calls. I run it with "caffeinate" terminal command and use time.sleep() to time the sending for the morning as I tend to wake up pretty late. Other times when I'm travelling I just push updated csv into google cloud vm and let it run there. A more advanced setup would be sqlite + keeping timestamps, message and thread ids for future work e.g. analytics on responses. You can track opens using GA tracking pixel.
  - nicbou 4y ago
    What's wrong with MailChimp?
  - corentin88 4y ago
    You might also spread your campaign across several days. That how we do for our customers sending over 10,000 with Gmail.
- 4y ago

lancesells 4y ago

Sounds like you should switch to sending two a month.

dawnerd 4y ago
As a consumer, please no. Way too many places go from sending one email to once a week to suddenly every single day... and some local restaurants decided multiple per day would work.
yoyohello13 4y ago
This is how it starts. Before you know it, they are spamming their mailing list every day.
michalu 4y ago
So far we found once a month to be our sweet spot. Majority of customers buy their monthly supply in one shopping session and this is a way to prompt some of them + reactivate old customers / staled customers and convert blog subscribers. I think the next step is to segment our customer/subscriber base and send at various frequency. But it's also a "side-hustle" so it takes effort :)
- zoltrix303 4y ago
  I'm curious, did you try a subscription model for your customers? Maybe you could even target to ones you see ordering every once in a while and offer them a monthly bag + a small incentive for the commitment?
  - michalu 4y ago
    Thank you it's something in the plans but I've been too lazy to set up the billing for subscription.
StevePerkins 4y ago
I assume that returns are diminishing, and turn negative past a certain point. If a company that I'm interested in sends me an email once per month, then I generally don't mind it. I might even appreciate it. Send it every two weeks, and you're training me to tune out and usually click the "Delete" button without looking at the content. Send it weekly, and you've irritated me enough to have the motivation to unsubscribe. Maybe just flag you as spam if the "Unsubscribe" link isn't immediately easy to find. Certainly tarnished my view of your brand. I don't know where the "sweet spot" is, but monthly sounds about right.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  Agreed, but depends on the content. For things like this, I'm assuming they can tell what people who do buy actually buy, and we might assume it's enough coffee for a few weeks or so. I do get some newsletters weekly and do not mind at all, because the info is new/fresh/useful. For 'buy some stuff', unless I'm buying every week (which I don't beyond food) likely less is more.
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    Really, it just depends on a the value you provide in your emails. If Apple sent me 40% discount promo codes, I'd LOVE weekly emails. Ha!
- mbesto 4y ago
  > I assume that returns are diminishing, and turn negative past a certain point. Which is why you should test it. Jan '22 -> once a month Feb '22 -> twice a month Mar '22 -> thrice a month Jan '23 -> once a month Feb '23 -> twice a month Mar '23 -> thrice a month Compare and contrast for both unsubscribe rate and conversion.
  - jacobobryant 4y ago
    Probably better to use a split test. Segment the list into two segments (via random assignment). Send one segment two emails per month, send the other one per month. Compare the segments.
argiopetech 4y ago
Not in the coffee business, but I doubt those who like coffee enough to receive a coffee newsletter need to purchase twice a month. It's very likely that doubling the touch points with consumers would lead to ad fatigue. This said, it's possible that once a month isn't the right interval. 3 weeks or 5 might be better. Analysis would need to be done.
bsedlm 4y ago
sounds like you want more better faster for less cheaper and quicker.
wil421 4y ago
If you send annoying emails to my inbox I’m ignoring them and eventually will unsubscribe or mark them as spam.
legitster 4y ago
Are you my VP of marketing?
layer8 4y ago
I know an online retailer who sends a newsletter every day, if not multiple newsletters per day. It’s insane. Apparently they have enough customers who don’t unsubscribe that it works for them.
killingtime74 4y ago
You are management material
atoav 4y ago
I have one company that I like to receive mails from and it is because I actually care about the content in their mails — it is actually interesting stuff, not marketing bs. If they sent me an email twice a week I would unsubscribe after a month. Every company that tries to waste my time like that looses a bit of my respect, period.
leros 4y ago
There is a fantasy themed candle company that emails me daily. My god it annoys me, but I also I buy so many candles. At my day job, we did a test around sending more emails and longer emails. Initially the more we sent, the more our core metrics and NPS went up. Then as we sent even more, our NPS starting dropping but our core metrics kept going up. It was rather interesting. There is definitely a balance to be had but my takeaway is that annoying your users a bit might be ok for business.

pdksam 4y ago

What service do you use for templatizing amd sending the emails? Are they personalized?

michalu 4y ago
We simply send emails using gmail API. They are personalized a bit, I run everything from jupyter notebook. Not a big fan of services like mailchimp. We keep personal approach so I prefer to land in primary inbox vs "promotions" as most customers are businesses and we've had exchanges over the email. We're just under 2k which is the daily limit for gmail, will start using SMTP with it since that gets you 10k emails a day.
- bfors 4y ago
  I'd be very interested to hear more details about your jupyter notebook setup for sending emails
  - michalu 4y ago
    It's embarrassingly primitive, we export all existing subscribers into csv from our CRM, I load it into pandas dataframe and send using simple for loop + gmail api calls. I run it with "caffeinate" terminal command and use time.sleep() to time the sending for the morning as I tend to wake up pretty late. Other times when I'm travelling I just push updated csv into google cloud vm and let it run there. A more advanced setup would be sqlite + keeping timestamps, message and thread ids for future work e.g. analytics on responses. You can track opens using GA tracking pixel.
- nicbou 4y ago
  What's wrong with MailChimp?
- corentin88 4y ago
  You might also spread your campaign across several days. That how we do for our customers sending over 10,000 with Gmail.
4y ago