Last week, I talked about my own personal frustration with how few emails I was getting from the allocation I’m on the waitlist for. One email a year that’s basically a “better luck next year, pal” is exceedingly frustrating for a nosy lady like me.
But I’ve also had experiences in the opposite direction recently, receiving emails at an alarming frequency (2-3 times a week) from retailers I haven’t even bought anything from yet.
Before we move on, I should note that I am fully aware that the unsubscribe button exists for a reason. I use it frequently when I feel overwhelmed by the number of emails I receive from a particular contact.
I should also note that I am by no means an email expert.
I’ve managed email marketing for one of my allocation-model winery clients since 2021, but we typically send around one to two emails per month. I also only just (like, in the last two weeks) started running email marketing for another client who sends emails at a much more frequent pace—averaging about ten segmented emails per month.
Long story short: my experience in the art of email marketing is currently limited.
But now that I’m working with a client who sends literally 900% more emails than my other client, I’ve become much more sensitive to the question of sending too many emails.
To be clear, this winery segments their emails really well. I’d guess that only a fraction of our contacts received all nine emails we sent in September, and from that list, less than 1% have unsubscribed. That’s not too shabby!
And yet this question of how many emails is too many? persists in keeping me up at night.
My Internal Debate
I think part of this concern is not necessarily how many emails we are sending, per se, but how many “value-added” emails we are sending relative to how many emails we are sending that ask for a sale.
On social media, I generally recommend following the Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 rule), which states that 80% of our results come from 20% of our efforts. In marketing terms, we typically interpret this as “selling” only 20% of the time and giving value the other 80% of the time. So, if you post ten times, only two of those “should” be transactional.
Of course, that’s kind of a hard ask with email marketing, especially considering the way we can control our segmentation these days. And unlike on social media, people expect email to be at least somewhat promotional.
Maybe the better version of the Pareto Principle for email is that each email itself could be 80% value and 20% sell?
However, this raises an issue with the infamous short attention spans we are dealing with in the year of our lord 2025. Who is going to read a super-long email, let alone click on the one call to action that’s maybe buried in the middle?
Personally, as a consumer of emails, I think the more realistic balance is this: For every eight transactional emails, send at least two pure “value-add” emails, and even for the salesy ones, always include at least some nugget of value, even if it’s small.
That way, it’s less like only calling your parents when you need money and more like: “Hey Mom, here’s what’s going on with me. Also, I could use some help with X.”
Not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea.
What Counts as Value?
Here are some winery-specific examples of “value-add” emails:
Educational: “3 Tips for Storing Your Wine in Hot Weather.” I like this idea, because it leads into a perfect opportunity to talk about your shipping options without it feeling overtly “salesy.” Can you include info on hot weather holds? Or talk about how your customers can add ice packs or temperature-controlled shipping to their orders?
Behind-the-Scenes: A note from the winemaker about what’s happening in the vineyard this week. This could be a standalone email, or it can include a brief call to action for folks to join you for a vineyard tour, or a link to purchase the wine from the block your winemaker is talking about in the email.
Lifestyle/Pairing: A seasonal recipe from your chef, or a playlist for your customers’ next dinner party. Again, these are easy segues into calls to action to purchase wine without the email feeling “about” the sale.
Storytelling: A photo essay from bottling day, or a short piece about the vineyard dog who just had puppies
And even emails intended solely for the sale can include some value. Instead of just “Club Pickup This Weekend,” add a note from the vineyard team about how harvest is progressing. Instead of just “15% Off Chardonnay,” include a quick explainer about the clone or block it came from. You could even show photos from when the wine was harvested.
You still haven’t answered my question: how frequently should I email?
I’m so sorry for what is about to be a very unsatisfactory short answer: It depends! The reality is, though, that there really isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to any kind of marketing.
That said, here are a few questions I am asking myself when thinking about my clients’ email frequency:
What did we promise subscribers when they signed up?
If we said “monthly updates,” we should stick to monthly to the best of our ability. If we promised weekly, then we should send weekly. Etc Etc
What time of year is it?
During times like the holidays, people tend to expect more frequent emails, so it might be okay for us to up our frequency a little, but during quieter times (like mid-winter), a couple times a month should be plenty.
What balance are we striking between sales and value?
Are we only sending promotions? Or do people also hear from us when we don’t need anything from them? If it feels like we are skewing too much to one side (or getting feedback to that effect via unsubscribes), then we should try to bring it back into balance.
Can we segment MORE?
Instead of sending all emails to all contacts all the time, I am working to find ways to get hyper-specific about who we are emailing. For example, the client I mentioned earlier who sent nine emails in September, pulled specific lists for each email. Even the multiple emails we sent about our California Wine Month promotion were segmented heavily. We only sent those emails to people who had purchased 4+ bottles in a single transaction in the last 18 months, and on each subsequent reminder about that promotion, we removed anyone who had purchased in the month of September.Would I want to receive this many emails?
It sounds so obvious, but looking at our own inbox is a great gut check. When I think we are sending too many emails, I look for ways to consolidate them. So, for promotions that last all month, like California Wine Month, we could have sent three times that month instead of weekly.
And likewise, if I feel we’re sending too few emails, I’ll look for ways to spread them out a bit. So, for example, if a client typically sends an email once per month that’s packed full of information like upcoming events, promotions, and news, I try to split up each section into its own email (which it’s own segement): the upcoming events email we could send at the top of the month, then do a promotional email the following week, and maybe do harvest updates the week after that.
Again, I still have a lot to learn about email marketing, but I think these questions are serving me well so far.
The Takeaway
I believe that email frequency (and social media posting frequency, for that matter) is all relative. Some wineries will want and need to email more frequently than others, but even within that frame of mind, quality over quantity is a good rule of thumb.
And another reliable bit of advice I can give across marketing is to pay close attention to what your subscribers are telling you through your metrics. Open rates, click rates, and unsubscribes are a really good guide for how your emails and their frequency are being recieved.
Speaking of which, this is a final reminder that unsubscribes aren’t necessarily a bad thing. They’re often a sign your list is staying healthy because only the people who want to hear from you will stick around. The benchmark across industries is about .22% unsubscribes per email. If you’re way above that, it’s worth asking:
Are we emailing too often?
Are we sending to the wrong people instead of segmenting?
Are we failing to deliver value alongside our asks?
But if you’re in the normal range, I wouldn’t worry too much about unsubscribes. Continue to focus on sending emails that make the people who do stay excited to open the next one.
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