Let’s face it.  People are busy.  Their email inboxes are full.  Are they really going to read your email newsletter?  Some will, some won’t.  I subscribe to several that I am truly interested in, but I don’t always have the time to read them all.  I assume you are the same.  It is the same with your subscribers. 

Just out of curiosity, I recently looked at my open rate for my email newsletters.  I discovered some interesting things. 

First, let me explain what the open rate is.  It is the number of emails opened divided by the number delivered to inboxes.

__________Opened_________ = Open Rate
                        Delivered

I noticed that I average about 55% for an open rate.  My data only goes back so far.  But I noticed that when I had only a few subscribers, I had around 60% open rate.  Now that the number of subscribers has increased substantially, the rate has only decreased slightly. 

What does this mean?

First, it is hard to determine what an average open rate is.  There are so many variables, that it is nearly impossible.  {Editor's Note:  'Opened' means someone actually opened the email rather than reading it in the 'preview pane'.  Tracking 'open' rates is not a perfect science. Not all opens are able to be tracked for a lot of reasons including image blockers and preview panes. Also, text versions of the newsletter can't have a tracker embedded so if the client prefers plain text we have no way to track open rates.}  Having said that, as a general guide, I found a source that suggests that in the art industry, an average open rate in the 45% range is average.  Most other industries had a lower average.  Again, this is only a general point of reference.

Also as a general rule, the larger the subscription rate, the lower the open rate.  Thus my decreased rate.

But this is not what I found most interesting.  As I browsed through the list of subscribers who open the emails, I found that there are a few core fans who read every newsletter.  Among the rest of those who read the newsletters, it changes from time to time.  This suggests that many subscribers occasionally read your newsletters.  Some this time.  Some next time.  And yet others the time after that. 

Again, remember, we are all busy and we simply don’t have time to read everything in our email inbox. 

So, this leads to my main point: timing.  When will your subscribers have the time to read what you have to say?  You don’t know.  And it won’t be the same for all of your fans.  Some will have time today, some tomorrow, some next week. 

So, it follows that if you send newsletters more often, you will eventually have more of your subscribers open your newsletter. 

Let’s look at a simple example.  I am not a statistician.  The following example has serious flaws, but I keep it simple to illustrate a point. In reality, the math is much more complex.

Suppose you have 100 subscribers.  You have an open rate of 50%, which means 50 subscribers open any given newsletter.  Of those 50, 25 open every one (let’s call them “Core Fans”).  The remaining 25 viewers change from time to time (let’s call them “Busy Fans”).

Suppose that you send your newsletter quarterly.  50 people will open it each time.  Let’s break down who is viewing.

Core fans: 25 view each time.

Busy fans: 25 the first quarter; 25 the second quarter; 25 the third quarter.  Let’s pause here.  We have reached your total fan base at this point (25 “core fans” plus 75 “busy fans” equals 100 fans).  So when you send the fourth quarter newsletter, you are reaching 25 of your “busy fans” a second time.  Thus:

25 fans = 4x each

25 fans = 2x each

50 fans = 1x each

So half of your fans only read your newsletter once a year.  You send it 4 times.

What if you sent your newsletter monthly?  Out of an open rate of 50, if 25 read it every month and the remaining 25 readers change from month to month, the math works out to:

25 fans = 12x each

75 fans = 4x each

So, let’s look at the respective increases:

Frequency newsletter sent – increased by 3 times.

Core fans exposed to your art – all 25 increased by 3 times.

Busy fans exposed to your art – 25 increased by 2 times.

Busy fans exposed to your art – 50 increased by 4 times.

This means that half of your total subscribers quadrupled the number of times they were exposed to your art through your newsletter.  But you only tripled the frequency.  So for half of your fans, the increased result was greater than the effort.  For a fourth of your fan base, the increased result equaled your effort.  For the remaining fourth, the increase wasn’t as large, but it was still an increase.  Again, this example is far from perfect.  But it illustrates an important point.

So what would the increase be if you sent them bi-weekly or even weekly?  We won’t do the math here, but I hope you get the point.

In closing, the more often you send your newsletters, the more your fans will be exposed to your art.  And for many, the benefits are greater than the effort.  That is a plus in my book.  In future articles we will discuss how to increase your open rate and what the open rate really means in terms of increased business. 

Best Wishes,

Keith