Do you remember the time back when you were ten years old?
You do, don't you?
And you remember the day you got your allowance, right?
So what did you do with your allowance? I'll tell you what. You carefully put it in the bank, so that it could earn an interest rate, and some day you'd earn a big chunk of money, right?
Um, wrong…
You took your allowance and found ways to use it.
Candy, toys, food. You quickly, and I'd say reasonably quickly, spent your allowance.
Well, guess what? You haven't changed that much now that you've grown. And neither has your customer.
Your customer spends when they get their allowance
And this makes a difference when you're considering how often you're going to send out your newsletter.
If your customer gets their allowance on the very day/week you send out your newsletter, then if you've created your sales page right, you're going to get a sale. However, if you've sent your newsletter three weeks ago, the customer has probably forgotten about your offer, and is looking at your competitor's offer right now. And this is because of the way our brains are structured.
And how are our brains structured?
On any given day, week, month, we have a list of things we'd like to have/buy. But we work on the most urgent. Or the most visible. If it's urgent e.g. a leark in the roof–then the ‘allowance' is spent on the most urgent. If there exists no particular urgency, then the customer deals with the most visible offering.
And if your newsletter is sitting in front of the customer this week, guess what's most visible?
Yup, you guessed right. And that's why increased frequency leads to more sales.
What's weird is that I was personally against sending out a newsletter more frequently
When I first started out Psychotactics.com, I was sending out a newsletter once a month (if at all). And I thought that was enough. Then an online magazine bugged me to write more often, so I started writing twice a month. And then, with more pressure, four times a month. And even though I was totally against the concept of increased frequency, here's what I found:
1) I found that sales increased by 300% or more.
2) I found that I got a lot better and faster at writing–and dramatically increased my ideation speed.
So how did sales increase by 300% or more?
They did, because of the ‘allowance concept.' When customers got the newsletter, they read it. And when they read it, they decided to buy product and services. Frequency also worked in another unexpected way. Customers got more ‘reminders' to buy the products/services if I sent out the newsletter four times a month, than if I sent it out once a month. I know it sounds obvious, but the obvious is often easily overlooked.
Of course this caused its own problem: How do I sustain good content week after week?
The answer is: I didn't move from a monthly newsletter to a weekly newsletter. I moved from once a month, to twice a month, and then three times a month. And then four times a month. What I found to my delight, was that my writing skills improved. And my speed improved. And I worked out a system to write faster and more consistently than ever before. Which makes sense when you think about it. You're more likely to get better at something if you do it more often, than less often, eh?
Which brings us back full circle to frequency
Your customers also respond to something they see more often.
And the frequency helps them to get used to seeing your product/service as a brand.
When that brand is in front of them on ‘allowance day', they simply buy your product/service.
Just like you bought candy. And toys. And food when you were little.
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