The biggest mistake marketers make with email campaigns is sending too much too often. “They’re cheap, so let’s blanket our prospects with our emails”. This might have worked before, but your prospects can easily protect themselves from this now.

Campaign success doesn’t only depend on email open rates, open rates won’t get you the sale. Instead you should be sending information only when you have something new to say, something big to announce, a good offer to make.

Move away from the mass marketing approach. Segment your prospects and customers into groups according to metrics like how much they like your product, (e.g. Apple fanatics get more product updates than the average ipod user) and how often they buy (borders customers that purchase once a week get offers more often).

Each business/ campaign will have an optimum campaign schedule that works. To get you started with yours, try sending out 2 emails between expected purchase dates, adjusted as the length of time increases. If your customers buy every week, send them 2 offers a week. If purchases are a yearly affair divide your campaigns into bi-monthly campaigns.

Make sure you vary your campaigns. Send them an email linked to a personal url, follow up with a direct mail piece then a call from your sales staff, send a letter thanking them for taking the time for the call, include a better offer in that letter… The methods of reaching your customers are endless, don’t abandon other channels because you think emails are cheaper. 

Remember your marketing campaign goal should always be to get better response that lead to a sale not keeping campaign costs down!