Email - How much is too much?

Heather Jacob

Hi all!


I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas for how many times in a given period of time we should be emailing our donors or prospective donors? I'm talking about mass emails, not personal communications. Does any know of any research done in this area?


In trying to get my co-workers switched over from MailChimp to NXT, I learned that the marketing folks sent out 83 mass email blasts in the last year. That equates to our constituents getting email from us roughly every 4 days. That just seems like a bit too much to me. Looking for some other points of view and any data to back it up.

Stacy Evans

I say don't overdo it. Think about how you feel when you get to many emails asking for money. Personally, if I'm inundated with marketing emails, I simply without hesitation delete them. It's one thing to engage...it's another to overwhelm.

JoAnn Strommen

I so agree. I looked to see your org as IMO one could make a case for different frequency based on org mission. If it's not emergency in nature, requiring immediate action, I think one every four days is a bit much.


I think our university/alumni/foundation is sending too many. Been personally monitoriing since starting last year. Sending weekly reminders about upcoming events plus other issues plus department newsletters would have me unsubscribing. There is a master calendar our alum can refer to without lengthy newsletter about virtual events 3 months out. My alma mater seems to send a monthly eNews. That's about right for that purpose.

Faith Murray

I would re-think about switching over to emails in NXT until Blackbaud has completely rolled out its subscription preferences options. In Online Express, which we have, our donors could not select which types of emails they wanted - it was subscribe or unsubscribe, no in between. We lost several subscribers that way. As a result, we switched to Mailchimp, even though we had to sacrifice some integration convenience. We still use OLX for our web forms.


While I am with you on the frequency issue, sending an email once a week is not outside the norm (or so I have been told repeatedly by our communications/marketing staff). Less than twice/month and you can lose engagement with your donors. The real key here is to segment, segment, segment, and to offer a variety of email content. Donors should not be receiving solicitations twice a week. They should receive the occasional solicitation once or twice a month, plus a newsletter, inspirational content, stewardship emails ("your gift helped Ryan graduate"), special event invitations, insider information specific to their membership group, etc. Very few emails should be going to the entire email list.


PS. For context, we sent out 10 emails in Mailchimp so far this month, but out of those 10 emails, only 2 went to our entire subscriber audience. The rest used "groups" in Mailchimp, which is my job to segment and update. We have about 7 different master lists (broad demographic categories), with 8 publicly-visible subscription preference groups and 47 "hidden" sub-groups (targeted mailing groups) inside those master lists. I mention this because a Communications calendar can appear crowded and daunting, but if it is done right, most donors will not be receiving most emails.

Amanda Lee

I think that depends on your audience and other touch-points you are making.

Are you calling them also? Sending them direct mail?


We have 335k constituents and we send about one campaign (4 appeals and 1 stewardship piece) per month. The campaign varies - one campaign could be for providing heat to Elders, the next food, then personal hygiene items, etc.

Ralph Bane

Hi Heather:

I completely agree with what others have said about segmentation. In regards to data to back up the how often question, I came across this blog:
campaignmonitor

One of the points I really liked is letting your users dictate the frequency of communication, with valued-added benefits from the various segments.

I was surprised with the study referred to in the article where respondents were asked, how often do you want to hear from companies you do business with?

Please let us know if you come across any other resources with data.

Thank you for bringing to the fore this important question.

Ralph