In her Email Marketing column on Clickz, Jeanne Jennings provides some quick tips to determine the right e-mail frequency for your organization, and explains how to create a situation whereby you control the list and protect recipients from being bombarded.

First of all she states that frequency depends on the goals for your email and the type of content you send.

Some rough guidelines:

• Mail at least once a month
• Let content be your guide
• Take the lead from your readers
• Work within your resources
• Watch for trends

In large corporations or associations, usually every internal group
wants to send to the entire e-mail list all the time. These folks mean
well. But they often don’t consider the big picture.

For any organization, a house list is an asset. As such, you want to
protect it for use over the long term. Using frequency as a way to
maintain control isn’t bad, but why not address the control issue right
up front?

Here’s an exercise she uses with clients to protect their lists:

• Get input from all internal groups. Learn what types of content
  they want to send and how often. Get as much detail as possible (who,
  what, when, why)
• Sort it out: consolidate
• Create a master calendar
• Appoint a gatekeeper
• Consider segmentation and dynamic content
• Watch performance

Read the full article here.

Source: Clickz