The gods of marketing say it takes about seven encounters for a lead to agree to convert into a customer. The same holds true for email campaign: it takes multiple exposures for a reader to get on board. Getting on board looks different in an email campaign. For the email marketing world, getting on board means knowing your brand exists and being invested in learning more about that brand – maybe even trusting that brand to make a future investment in later. This is key. You want people on board because you want them invested in what you have to say. It’s how you build your audience, your brand, spark word of mouth, and get people to buy-in to whatever you’re trying to sell.

The next challenge is getting face time with your readers. You don’t want to be that over enthusiastic email marketer that sends too many email campaigns. [Confession: this is a VERY popular tactic in new media marketers that are selling digital services or consultations, and it’s quite frankly the fastest way to get unsubscribers. Let’s be honest, no one is that enthusiastic all the time and no one is that interested in your product. Add to it the dodgy email campaign practices these people use which including creating conversation subject lines so it looks like the campaign is from a friend rather than from a business or brand. It’s a hideous unoriginal practice. Please stop doing it.]

So, the question is how can you be a normal person sending genuine content that is of interest to your followers without being spammy? Easy. You diversify your email campaigns. If you already send a daily campaign, then add in a weekly campaign as well. If you already send a daily campaign, then add in a weekly campaign as well. If you’ve already got a weekly campaign, then add in a monthly or even quarterly digest.

The daily email campaign can be about what’s happening at that moment. It can be about daily deals or calls to action that are time sensitive. The weekly just needs to be a status update about what’s been going on and what’s coming up. The weekly should not be content heavy but have bullet points or digestible chunks of content that give an overview of where you’re at and what people can opt-in for.

The digest is a little trickier, and how you approach it really isn’t that different from industry to industry. The digest should read like a data mine of everything your audience will want to know. Think of the digest as a curated magazine with great content, visual or data-driven, that you’re not going to want to throw away. If you’re going to save any of these three email varieties to your website as a tool to attract more readers, then the digest is it.

Also keep in mind that not every reader gets to every single email, which means it’s totally acceptable to repeat information as long as the copy reads differently. If someone does read the same thing again because they’re hitting every email, then at least they’ve read the same information in a new way. Exposing your audience to repeat information isn’t a terrible idea; it ensures the point is driven home.