Last week I taught a workshop on email marketing, and like clockwork, the frequency question came up.

"How often should I be sending a newsletter?"

It's one of the most common questions I get, and also one of the most anxiety-producing, because there's so much conflicting advice out there.

Send weekly or daily or you'll be forgotten.
Don't send too often or you'll annoy people.
Monthly is fine.
Monthly isn't enough.

Here's what I've come to believe after working with dozens of clients across industries, from financial advisors to therapists to coaches:

There is no universal "best practice" when it comes to email marketing for businesses built around your expertise.

The 39 replies (and countng) in my inbox from yesterday's poll email make that pretty clear.

When I’m working through this with a client, I look through this through multiple lenses:

• What is your business model?
• What are you selling?
• How many clients do you need?
• Who is your primary audience?
• What is the immediacy of your people’s needs?
• What feels sustainable for you?

Those questions intersect differently for everyone, and many of my clients have very distinct subscriber buckets, ranging from referral partners to past clients to people they're hoping will hire them.

A one-size-fits-all cadence definitely doesn't work when your list isn't one-size-fits-all.

(Which is exactly why a well-built email marketing system designed for your business that lets you distinguish between those groups isn't a nice-to-have, it's the whole point.)

For thinking through the business model piece, I find Dr. Michelle Mazur's marketing framework for expertise-based businesses really useful.

She breaks them into three buckets:

High-touch businesses working with organizations or C-suite clients who need a handful of engagements a year and mostly get them through referrals.

Scalable service providers like coaches, consultants, and done-with-you folks working (hi, it's me!) with 20-40 clients a year who need to stay visible to people who aren't ready yet (or need you immediately).

Leveraged model businesses - memberships, courses, digital products - serving higher volumes of clients. (In my personal experience, this group is also are more likely to be running ads to their products and services.)

Each of these models tend to have a different cadence.

For example, for someone who has a high-touch business model, quarterly to monthly is probably plenty. Any more than that may actually work against you.

The second two buckets tend to be my clients, and the systems I set up for them generally look vastly different, even for people who fit into the same business model.

Take two of my clients Steve and Alex, who both have leveraged businesses but are selling to two very different audiences.

Alex supports medical writers at several stages of their careers through a membership and digital products. She was already writing weekly before we worked together - that didn't change.

What changed was who was receiving what, and when, based on where each subscriber was in their career.

Steve sells prep courses for professionals studying for the exams that let them advance in their field. His audience sits in that interesting spot that's not quite B2B or B2C, and they only need his courses at very specific moments.

A monthly cadence makes much more sense for him, and part of our work together was getting him from sporadic, occasional sends to a reliable monthly rhythm his subscribers can actually count on.

And then there's Chelsea, who I wrote about last week.

She runs a private practice and fits squarely in the scalable service model. But she also has several distinct groups of people she's emailing, so she doesn't send to everyone at the same cadence.

Getting the cadence right for her wasn't just about frequency. It was about building a system that made showing up for all three audiences feel manageable instead of overwhelming.

She now emails each group differently, because her setup finally makes that possible.

Which brings me to the sustainability piece, because for anyone juggling multiple segments, or LIFE, this matters a lot.

What will you actually sustain? A monthly newsletter sent like clockwork is worth far more than a weekly one abandoned after six weeks. Consistency over time builds trust.

If you're recognizing yourself here - or you're not sure which model you're in - I'd love to help you think it through.

​Download the services guide to get a full picture of how I work, or if you're ready to just talk it out, book a zero-pressure meet & greet and let's figure out what actually makes sense for your business.

Take it one step at a time,
​Bev