There are two sets of needs to consider when determining your email frequency: your organization's and your members'. The answer lies in the intersection of your goals. If you don't meet your members' needs, they'll unsubscribe and your organizations' needs will not be met either. If you don't meet your organizations' needs, then you're wasting valuable resources (staff time, money).

To get their perspective, ask yourself: "What benefit do the folks on my list hope to get out of being on this email list?" Perhaps it is to feel "in the loop", to meet like-minded neighbors, to develop their leadership skills, or to feel they're helping make a change they want to see in the world.

To get your organization's perspective, ask yourself: "What goals do we hope to achieve by expending resources on this email list?" Most organizations will answer something along the lines of: "Increase our base of supporters (grow the list), educate the public on an issue, turn out activists/voters, and fundraise."

Consider a few cases where different frequencies are appropriate:

Case 1: Monthly - You're a coalition working on an issue, and the primary service you provide to your members is to update them on what other coalition members are doing in various states. In this case, perhaps a monthly update in a newsletter format is appropriate. Another case where monthly (or less) contacts may be adequate is a community group list, where members expect to receive an email only when there's an event happening.

Case 2: Weekly - Many activist/advocacy groups aim to email their list about once a week, once every two weeks at the least. In these cases, the alerts generally should be brief, have a personal tone, and be tied to events happening in the real world. (Think: What would I say to a friend? Be brief and clear, presume they're smart and busy.) This consistency helps develop a narrative and voice over time that tells members: we are the people who are on top of this issue that you care about; we are the go-to organization on this.

Case 3: Daily - There are a few things that a general audience wants to hear about daily, like their bank account balance or NYT headlines. Most organizations don't have enough content on a daily basis to justify this frequency of communication. One exception might be a moment of significant real-world activity around an issue in which your members -- or a subset of your members -- are highly invested. For example, if you're holding house parties, the hosts are unlikely to subscribe if you email them the day before the party, the day of the party, and the day after the party. If it is 3 days before an election and some of your members have signed up as poll-watchers or phone volunteers, then emailing them daily for a short period of time is appropriate to ensure they have the information they need to be successful.

Case 4: As-It-Happens - A common type of as-it-happens email is a news alert. Through Google Alerts, I get an email every time there's a news article on "Cheryl Contee", my business partner. And I never feel harassed, even if I get 5 emails in a day! Facebook and Twitter also send as-it-happens alerts that are triggered by activity on those websites (e.g. when someone new "follows" me on Twitter). Alerts triggered by user actions can be a terrific way to keep your supporters in the loop in very personalized ways. However, they tend to require a significantly higher level of technology and marketing savvy than the typical email blast.

Looking just at the case of email blasts, there are still some limited cases in which it is appropriate to send more than one email in a day. If you're the organization leading high-profile anti-war protests that are all over the news, then by all means ride the media wave and contact your members (or perhaps just your active members or volunteers and donors) as frequently as needed for those few days to fuel your on-the-ground activities with volunteers, participants, and dollars. If you (or your issue) are at the center of 24-7 CNN coverage, you get a free pass.

In each case, putting yourself in the shoes of your subscribers and asking "Do I want this email? Would I forward it to a friend if I didn't work for this organization?" is a good place to start. If the answer is "no", then consider not sending it yet, or altering your format or content. After your email blasts are passing that basic test, you'll want to watch your unsubscribe rates. If increasing your frequency causes your unsubscribe rates to shoot up without a corresponding increase in new joins, then decrease your frequency until you hit your list's sweet spot.

Caveat: Watching unsubscribes and responding accordingly is a simple form of testing, and you should therefore follow the basic principles of testing, e.g. controlling for other variables. One simple way to do this is increasing the frequency with which you email one random subset of your list for a set period of time (say, a month) and see whether that subset shrinks at a faster rate than the rest of your list.

In addition to watching net list growth (joins - unsubs) -- which indicates whether you're achieving your readers' goals -- you should be watching the other variables that indicate whether you're achieving your organization's goals. For example, if you email more frequently, more people may unsubscribe, but a larger number of people overall may take action. To illustrate: If each time I send an email blast 10 people unsubscribe and 400 people take action, then emailing three times will triple my unsubs, but it will also triple my actions. When you've got an important piece of legislation being considered and a handful of additional phone calls from members could make the difference, then the list shrinkage may be worthwhile. In the long run, helping pass that legislation will increase your credibility on the issue, which will also help your list growth in the long run.

One way you can limit unsubscribes while maximizing response rates is by targeting your messages. Over time, you can get to know your list by testing (e.g. watching how unsubscribes and response rates vary as you vary your frequency, tone, format) and through data analysis (e.g. identifying subsets of your list that take action every time). Once you know your list, you can target your messages more accurately to those who will be most likely to act on them, and least likely to unsubscribe. This is particularly important for "high asks" asks like "host a party" or "make phone calls" or "donate" that will generate high unsubscribes and low response rates when sent to a general audience.

What about our quarterly newsletter? Many organizations send a quarterly "what we're up to" email newsletter. Often these are adaptations of long-running offline newsletters. They tend to have high production value and therefore require a lot of internal resources to produce. If you're asking the question "Should we send our quarterly newsletter more frequently?" and shuddering at the work-load that would imply, then I encourage you to step back further and ask the bigger question: "What would an email communication program look like that maximized both our utility and our readers' utility?" Here's how to get started finding the answer:

• Take a look at your current stats.
• Which links are people clicking through? That's an indication of what they're most interested in.
• Is the response you're getting (clicks, donations) worth the time and effort that you're putting in?
• If yes, then you're on the right track. Try increasing the frequency.
• If no, then consider whether another format and frequency would make more sense.
• Here are some things to try:

  • Expand the sections that are getting the most click-through, get rid of those that are getting the least.
  • Break off a sample of your list and test sending one quick-and-dirty email per article, instead of compiling them into a newsletter.
  • Do a short survey of a sample of your members. Ask them what they really want to hear about.
  • Create different email lists -- e.g. a newsletter, an alert list, a discussion list -- and let people subscribe to only those that suit their needs.

Bottom line: the perfect email frequency is unique to each email list. Look at your stats to find out if what you're doing is working. Run tests on samples of your list to find out how to improve your response rate and reduce your unsubscribe rate. Lastly, here are two terrific resources to help you craft and tweak your email communications strategy over time: http://www.progressiveexchange.org (for peer advice) and http://www.neworganizing.com (for formal training).

This article was prepared for Laura S. Quinn of http://Idealware.org.