Campaign Frequency: Finding the Sweet Spot

Finding the most effective frequency to send your marketing campaigns depends on the channel you are using, your audience, objectives, and product type, to name just a few relevant factors.

A weekly email or mailshot about new products or offers may be appropriate if you are in an FMCG industry but if for example you provide car or home insurance, then a few timely emails leading up to the renewal date would be the way to go.

Products used daily, and which therefore need replacing more frequently are more appropriate subjects of a higher frequency of communications.

Testing for success

The above examples are fairly straightforward, so predicting an effective initial frequency is easier.

For other industries (particularly B2B products), the correct frequency may be more difficult to ascertain. Hence the best way to identify peak frequency in this scenario is often to test, test and re-test. The trialling of segmentation around demographics such as age, gender, spend patterns and/or other key differentials appropriate to your sector is the best place to start.

Make a plan for this and stick to it. It can take some time, as any testing and monitoring of strategies often will.

Use AB testing and send to Group A bi-weekly but Group B monthly over a set period and see which option yields the best response rates for your campaign.

Then run the better option for the majority of your campaign whilst continuing the testing over a smaller percentage of your data.

You may need to test your findings again in the future as customer behaviours (as well as potentially your products/services) change and develop over time.

The ideal frequency will also vary depending on the nature of your communications; don't assume the right frequency for special offers will also be correct for newsletters.

Segmentation & Reach

As well as finding that different frequencies work better for promotional versus newsletter type content, you may well find that different segments of your audience respond better to different frequencies.

To identify the sweet spot here in terms of frequency, you guessed it – more testing. There are many ways to slice your data. You may already have identified segments to start this testing (maybe with different buying patterns, attributes or other factors.)

The term ‘Reach’ (how many people your message gets to) and ‘Frequency’ (how many times you get to each contact) are often used hand in hand because budget and resource factors can mean you have to choose between them.

So… do you market to 200 people 5 times or to 1000 people once?

Identifying the appropriate frequency for your audience, and segments within it, will help you make the best use of your resources.

Personalised frequency

Beyond group segmentation, you could use automation systems to identify effective frequency at an individual level. These same systems can also help you to personalise the content to the individual to ensure that the content is relevant to their interests.

This ensures that you are sending the right message, at the right time, through the right channel to each customer – based on what you already know about them, their response rates and even their buying patterns.

Personalising your frequency using an automation tool will give you the best possible chance of getting your message in front of your customer or prospect at the most appropriate times for them.