Email Cadence

Email cadence is the strategic timing and frequency of email communications. Naturally, it’s an essential aspect of effective digital marketing and customer relationship management. Mastering email cadence ensures your messages reach recipients at optimal times, which means better engagement and avoiding email fatigue.

However, understanding the perfect email cadence can be a challenging task for businesses and marketers. It involves balancing frequency with relevance, ensuring each email adds value to the recipient’s experience. So, we’re here to help guide you through the key elements of email cadence, from understanding your audience’s preferences to measuring the impact of your strategy, and providing insights and best practices to enhance your email campaigns! Let’s dive right in.

Defining Email Cadence

Email cadence refers to the rhythm and frequency at which emails are sent to a target audience.

It’s a crucial aspect of email marketing strategy. Often, it is challenging to find the perfect cadence because it’s about figuring out the right number of emails but not overwhelming the readers.

The proof is in the pudding – around 33% of marketers prefer sending weekly emails, while 26% opt for multiple times per month, adjusting the frequency based on subscriber engagement​. You’ll probably need to gauge the preferences of your subscribers as well as other factors before you can decide on the perfect email cadence for you.

Best practices for email cadence are all about aligning email strategies with specific goals and customer mindsets.

It’s essential to understand the buyer’s journey and tailor messages accordingly, as different stages require different approaches.

Additionally, sprinkling in some A/B testing can reveal subscriber preferences for email timing and frequency, offering insights for refining email strategies​.

The 4 Pillars of Email Cadence

As we’ve established, the concept of email cadence revolves around strategically managing the timing and frequency of emails.

This is all done to optimize engagement and email marketing effectiveness. Diving into this crucial strategy, it’s important to recognize that a successful email cadence hinges on meticulous planning and understanding your audience’s preferences.

Based on various expert sources, there are four key pillars that can be identified for perfecting email cadence:

1. Understanding goals and customer mindset

The foundation of effective email cadence is aligning your email strategy with both your business objectives and the preferences of your audience.

It’s essential to map out what you want to achieve through your email campaigns, such as increasing blog traffic or driving e-commerce sales, and understand where your customers are in their buying journey (Awareness, Consideration, Decision)​.

With over 4 billion daily email users, understanding consumer behavior is crucial. 99% of email users check their inbox daily, with 58% checking first thing in the morning. This highlights the importance of timing your emails to match when consumers are most likely to engage – and good timing comes from a good understanding of your audience.

2. Email personalization

Personalization plays its own role in the optimal email frequency quest. By integrating personalization into email cadence, marketers can create more relevant and engaging content. More engaging content strengthens the overall relationship between the brand and its customers.

And the result is that emails are not perceived as generic or spammy! Even when they are sent more often. Rather, they are seen as valuable and tailored communications that align with each subscriber’s unique interests and journey.

Personalization in email marketing has been shown to significantly impact engagement. According to a study by Campaign Monitor, 57% of marketers consider personalization as the most effective email marketing tactic. This goes beyond basic name inclusion; it involves creating emails that resonate with the individual interests and needs of each recipient​. Further, 60% of retail, e-commerce, and consumer goods and services companies are personalizing emails based on past purchases​.

3. A/B testing for preferences

A/B testing is perhaps the most important pillar of email cadence. It’s crucial for determining the optimal email cadence because it allows you to test different frequencies, timings, and content types to see what works best. This methodical approach can significantly improve open and click-through rates, leading to better campaign ROI. Testing your emails can lead to up to a 28% higher return​ on investment.

Among other applications, A/B testing helps in identifying the most effective times for sending emails. For instance, 23% of all email opens occur within the first hour after delivery, indicating the importance of timing. Furthermore, 81% of emails are now opened and read on mobile devices, emphasizing the need for mobile-optimized content​.

4. Finding the right frequency

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for email frequency; it varies depending on the type of business and audience preferences. This pillar differs from A/B testing, which is primarily about comparing two versions of an email to see which performs better.

In contrast, finding the right frequency focuses on determining how often to send emails to maximize engagement without overwhelming subscribers.

The average U.S. worker receives around 126 emails every day, and too frequent emails can contribute to inbox clutter, leading to unsubscribes. On the other hand, infrequent emails might lead to missed opportunities​.

What is the Optimal Email Timing?

Frequency is important, and there are noticeable differences in sending emails weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or even daily. But another important factor that we can’t leave out of the equation is email timing.

Optimal email timing is about sending emails at times when they are most likely to be opened and engaged with by the target audience. This varies depending on several factors, including the nature of the business, the type of audience, and the specific goals of the email campaign.

HubSpot conducted a survey involving over 150 marketing and advertising professionals in the U.S., revealing insightful data: Regarding the best day of the week to send emails 27% of marketers found Tuesday to be most effective, followed by Monday (19%) and Thursday (17%). It’s advised to avoid weekends, especially Sundays, due to low engagement. The graph below visualizes this data.

There are also differences in engagement according to the hour of the day. About 47.9% of B2B marketers reported the most engagement between 9 AM and 12 PM.

For B2C marketers, 30.9% experienced the most engagement in the same timeframe.

These findings suggest that B2B emails might perform better during traditional work hours, while B2C emails could have more flexible timing.

How to Perfect Your Email Cadence

Perfecting your email cadence probably isn’t something that will happen on your first try, but it doesn’t have to be a chore either. With our advice on how to perfect your email frequency, you’ll be up and running in no time.

Let’s start by taking a look at the latest trends and insights to inform your email cadence strategy.

1. Embrace mobile optimization

With 41% of email views on mobile devices, ensuring that your emails are mobile-friendly is crucial​​. A responsive design not only caters to a significant portion of your audience but also aligns with consumer preferences, as 46% of smartphone users prefer receiving business communications via email​

Mobile users often check their emails sporadically throughout the day. This behavior affects the optimal timing for sending emails. Early morning or evening might be effective times, considering that 58% of consumers check their email first thing in the morning.

2. Implement automations

AI’s role in email marketing is increasingly significant. AI can personalize content, optimize send times, and even predict the best frequency for each subscriber segment. Automation also plays a key role, especially in B2C marketing where 87% of marketers use it as part of their strategy​​.

Many solutions like Benchmark offer email automation services that help to test and continuously improve email cadence.

Automated emails, triggered by specific actions like a purchase or website visit, ensure timely and relevant communication, and that improves your overall email cadence.

3. Use interactive content

Believe it or not, interactive content brings its own set of benefits to email cadence optimization. Interactive elements like polls, surveys, and clickable tabs keep subscribers engaged longer within the email itself. This heightened engagement can inform the timing and frequency of future emails.

Similarly, by incorporating interactive features, you can collect real-time feedback and data. This information is invaluable for adjusting email content, frequency, and timing.

It makes it easier to ensure that each message is more aligned with subscriber interests and behaviors. A great option for interactive content is a shareable quiz that is relevant to your audience!

The Wrap Up

Email cadence refers to the strategic scheduling and frequency of emails in a marketing or communication campaign. It involves planning the timing and content distribution to optimize engagement and maintain a healthy relationship with the audience. We can see that understanding and mastering email cadence is essential for effective communication and relationship-building.

An effective email cadence considers factors such as the nature of the content, audience preferences, and industry standards. Perfected cadence is something you need to have so that messages are neither too intrusive nor too infrequent.

In conclusion, mastering email cadence is pivotal for achieving successful communication outcomes. Striking the right balance between regularity doesn’t have to be that hard. Just implement some of the tips we’ve provided such as A/B testing.