I think about this all the time! For a long time, I too held the belief that more emails to more subscribers was the best method. Although it eventually became clear that, depending on how many emails any particular brand sends (at Hazel Village, we send 2-3/week Q1-Q3 and then 6/week during Q4), showing up in inboxes of less interested customers constantly negates the effect of the emails. There’s an unspoken dialogue that happens between a brand and a subscriber – brands need to respond to the behavior of the subscriber and adjust accordingly. If a brand ignores the signals that a subscriber is giving them through their engagement with emails, it can lead to increased unsubscribe rates and ultimately could even lose a customer. Some subscribers want emails constantly and love seeing a brand in their inbox and others only want an email every once in a while!

When Hazel Village began to embrace segmenting and list cleaning, I noticed that not only did our open rates and click rates increase (I anticipated this as we were sending to smaller and more engaged lists) but our unique opens and unique clicks actually increased. On top of that, Hazel Village was able to have a lower subscription level on Klaviyo because we weren’t sending as many emails to a huge list – thus lowering our spending and increasing our CPA.

As a member of a small company with a limited budget, I think the best way to be convinced that list cleaning and smart segmentation is the way to go is to be reminded that even though it is counterintuitive, intentional and considered marketing will always be more effective than widespread and homogenous marketing from both a  conversion and cost perspective!

Really great insights ​@rqcha , thanks so much for sharing!