Recently, I’ve been testing an interesting theory with a client’s account.
I want to find out if…
Higher email revenue could actually lead to a worse outcome.
“Wait?”
“What?!”
“I want to do email marketing because I want more sales.”
“How can more sales be a bad thing?”
At this point, I can sense the confusion in my readers’ eyes.
Let me explain:
If there’s ONE solid principle that’s always true in email marketing, that would be…
The more emails you send, the more sales you get.
BUT –
(and this is a big but)
What most daily email gurus do not talk about is…
It is also guaranteed that the more you send, the higher the churn.
I don’t care if you are Gary Bencivenga — the greatest living copywriter — himself… there will always be a “churn rate” for every email you send.
It could be low…
1, 2, or 12 unsubscribes.
But it won’t be zero.
This means…
1) The business will have to run MORE ads to replenish the lost profiles
2) You will lose some potential future sales because the potential customers drop off your list earlier
So, the question is –
What’s the best balance between short-term sales vs long-term customer lifetime value?
My results?
The ideal number falls in at 30~40% email attribution.
This translates to 3 to 4 email campaigns a week.
(^^for e-commerce, because context matters^^)
When I exceed 40%, which I’m almost always at when I send daily emails for a client, the churn rate starts to climb by 2%, 3%, or 7%.
In theory, all you have to do is run more ads.
(and that would 100% be the case if you’re selling an info-product or coaching)
But for e-commerce, it takes a lot longer to “liquidate” the ad cost.
And it’s just not worth losing the long-term customer lifetime value.
To your success,
– WYH