Email Cadence is the Key to Campaign Success

In last month’s NewsLever feature, we focused on email send frequency. Here, we delve deeper and talk about cadence — a primary factor in determining the success of your automated email-marketing campaigns.

What’s the Difference Between Frequency and Cadence?

Although frequency and cadence are closely related, these terms describe different aspects in email marketing. Whereas frequency is the number of emails sent in a given period of time, cadence encompasses the timing and pattern of emails sent. For example, cadence includes how many emails are sent and the amount of time between each of the emails, as well the email content and the audience receiving the emails.

Survey Gives Insight Into the Importance of Email Cadence in Promotional Email Marketing

A recent survey conducted by MarketingSherpa helps demonstrate the importance of cadence in email marketing. In the study, MarketingSherpa surveyed more than 2,000 adults in the U.S. to find out what potential customers feel about promotional emails (e.g., sales notifications and coupons). When asked how often, if ever, they’d like to receive promotional emails from companies they do business with:

• A huge majority (91%) of respondents said that they actually want to receive promotional emails. Plus, more affluent respondents were even more likely than respondents with average incomes to want promotional emails: 96% of people who reported earnings between $75,000 and $99,000 said they want to receive promotional emails from companies with which they do business.
• When it came to preferred cadence, however, there was a big difference in how often people reported they’d like to receive emails: For example, 86% of respondents said they’d like to receive emails at least monthly, whereas 15% said they would like daily emails from companies with which they do business.

Mapping Your Customer Journey — A First Step to Finding the Right Cadence

Thanks to automation, marketers today can easily create and send campaigns to help build one-to-one communication with prospects and customers. How do your email messages work together to engage with and nurture your subscribers? That’s where establishing the right cadence is important. For example, it takes much more than simply sending the same email automatically each week to your subscribers for campaign success.

A first step in finding the right cadence starts with mapping your company’s customer journey — all the touchpoints on your subscriber’s way to conversion. And by understanding the patterns of your subscriber’s buying journey, you can better anticipate his or her needs in order to send the right email message at the right time. Whether it’s a series of welcome emails, shopping cart abandonment emails, email newsletters, and/or trigger-based transactional emails, you can determine the right cadence to guide prospects and customers through the stages of conversion with your company.

Example of Cadence Optimization Testing Success at FulcrumTech

A client at FulcrumTech was sending a series of six emails to prospects with the goal of getting them to book an appointment with the company. The initial (control) email cadence was as follows: Days 0, 5, 12, 18, 25, and 32.

To help stay top-of-mind with prospects, we shortened the first interval between emails. After that, we setup the emails on a weekly schedule. For example, if the prospect showed interest by opening an email on a Saturday, we would continue to send them weekly emails on a Saturday. The following exemplifies a new cadence tested: Days 0, 3, 7, 14, 21, and 28.

By testing and optimizing the cadence of this client’s email series, we were able to help increase bookings by 33%.

Tips for Finding the Right Cadence for Email Campaign Success

In automated email campaigns, the right cadence is a major determinant of whether you’ll hit your marketing goals. Here are some ways to help you find the right cadence for email campaign success:

• Set up a preference center that gives subscribers the opportunity to have a say not only in the frequency and timing of emails they get from you, but the types of content in which they’re interested.
• Consider the length of a product’s sales cycle when determining the timing of your automated campaigns (e.g., a longer sales cycle would call for longer intervals between emails).
• Segment your list based on the frequency and cadence indicated by your subscribers. As the MarketingSherpa study cited above demonstrates, not everyone wants to receive emails daily, weekly, etc.
• Create and send content in a logical progression to move customers through the sales funnel. For example, send a new product update, followed by testimonials from satisfied customers, followed by a discount coupon code.
• Offer people who click your unsubscribe link the opportunity to opt down, rather than completely opt out. This could include reducing the frequency of emails, as well as eliminating different types of email messages.
• Continuously test the effectiveness of each email-marketing campaign’s cadence. For example, determine which topics or products each subscriber is interested in, as well as the frequency, day, and time of day that get the most opens and clicks. In addition to measuring and optimizing for such metrics as clicks and conversions, be sure to track unsubscribe rates.

Need help optimizing your email cadence? Contact the team of experts at FulcrumTech . We can help you create a comprehensive email-marketing strategy with a cadence that gets the most out of your automated email campaigns.

Other Articles You Might Like

• Email Send Frequency — What’s Your ROI Sweet Spot?
• How FulcrumTech Helps Clients Achieve Outstanding Email-Marketing Results with Automation & Real-Time Testing & Optimization
• 6 Super Ways to Keep Your Subscribers Engaged and Happy
• What Time of Day Should You Send Your Email Campaigns?
• How to Use the Power of Email to Enhance Your Customer Journey