Blog posts, emails, PDF’s, videos, webinar slides, free call outlines, and don’t forget the actual product itself. You’ve been in creation mode – creating the product you know your clients will love. It’s time to get this baby out there. You’ve got your calendar in front of you, and need to start scheduling 
the emails for your launch.
All of the sudden you realize: I have no idea how often I should email. I’m afraid they’ll unsubscribe, or even worse, they’ll think I’m a spammer.
So you schedule two emails. One to tell your list about the product, and one to tell them that the cart is closing. That’ll be enough, right?
Right???!
WRONG.
It’s understandable that you feel this way. You certainly don’t want to be one of “those” people who emails their list every time they take a breath. You don’t want to be considered too self-promotional.
But your product – it’s great. And you know it will help people.
So put yourself in their shoes. What if you were actively searching for the answer to a problem you have, and one of your favorite coaches created an amazing product that could solve it, but never told you? You would be bummed.
How do you email often enough that people are aware of your product, but not often enough that they’ll think you are becoming a spammer?
First, three important issues to consider.
- You must have a relationship with the people you are emailing. Otherwise, if they don’t understand who you are and why you’re emailing, they may think you’re a spammer no matter how many times you end up in their inbox.
- Your content to promotion ratio should be low. If you do have a relationship with them, your valuable content to promotion ratio needs to be at least 80% valuable content, 20% promotion. 90/10 (or even less) if possible.
- You need to have emailed the list recently. Any change/increase in amount of emails or starting to email again out of nowhere can trigger the “ewww” response in people.
If you don’t have a relationship with your list yet or haven’t mailed it recently, that’s okay! Start today. Draft out a series of emails you can send them that will be very helpful – schedule them out over the next several weeks, and you’re good to go.
Now that those guidelines are out of the way, we can discuss the question at hand.
How often should you mail your list?
Ask yourself this list of questions each time you start scheduling a launch: (FYI: these questions are available in a downloadable PDF at the end of the post)
1. How long is your entire launch from pre-launch to the day after the shopping cart closes? Think about how many weeks you’re planning here and consider how often you usually email your list. If your launch will be 21 days long, and you usually email four times a month, that gives you a number of emails that your readers will be used to, and a framework to go off of. As long as you keep the emails valuable and true to your brand, you can (and should) email more often during your launch.
2. How long do you have set up for a pre-launch sequence? Or, if you have no formal pre-launch sequence, how long do you have before the cart opens? – For each 7 days, you can probably mail two or three times.
3. How many pieces of pre-launch content (webinar, call, PDF/ebook, etc) are you using? – One email for each type. How many emails you send here will depend on how long your prelaunch is. If you have two weeks and three pieces of prelaunch content, you could send one email per piece. If you only have a week of prelaunch, you may want to consider sending less than three emails.
4. Will you be introducing a payment plan mid-launch? – One email introducing the payment plan in the middle of the launch if you don’t have a lot of content or if people were asking for it. Otherwise, no separate email about it.
5. What type of bonuses (and how many) are there? – If they are limited in any way, consider emailing about them (one time).
6. How many days is the shopping cart open? – At least one email when cart opens, two reminders before close.
7. Will you have affiliates? – Be mindful that it is possible your readers may be receiving emails about your launch from other lists they subscribe to.
8. Have I emailed enough? — The people who are interested in your product won’t be upset with you at emailing – they WANT to be reminded so they don’t forget!!
Want to use this as a guideline for your next launch?
Download the snazzy PDF version here: Download the Email Worksheet
Later this week in Part Two of this post, we’ll discuss what you should actually do with these numbers and how they translate to your actual calendar.
