Balancing Email Cadence: Strategies for Effective Customer Communication

Lyndsay Merbach · 2025-08-01 22:58:23.677619+00

Happy Friday! Looking for some insight/advice -- *what is your company's POV on overall email cadence / week to customers?* We're struggling with how to balance marketing emails and customer comms emails / requests and how to push back to teams who want more emails sent (since we don't want to bombard customers with more than 2-3 emails per week). We DO have a monthly customer newsletter, but we still get requests from other teams (e.g., Training) who want separate dedicated emails to promote more details. We also don't have a customer preference center yet but are exploring... **we're a large global company with multiple solutions/acquired companies, so that also adds a bit to our tricky customer comms dynamic. Thanks in advance - curious how other companies think about this!

Balancing Email Cadence: Strategies for Effective Customer Communication | CMAweekly Customer Marketing and Advocacy Slack

10 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Melissa DiBernardo
·
I've lead customer comms at a couple companies and it's a consistent challenge. I'm working though it again now. We limit to "Marketing" 3 emails per 7 days and it's a struggle. This doesn't include the multiple operational emails we send. Personas and segmentation are coming into play. Marketing (growth/upsell) primarily focuses on C suite, VP and Directors. Engagement (customer comms/optimization) is focusing on ICs, Managers and Directors. It's not perfect but it works. We remove the newsletter from the limit so, if customers are suppressed from other emails due to the limits, then they are least get the info in the newsletter. We have also started segmenting newsletters to include some light growth content that's applicable to that audience. And we're quickly building out our community to use as a means of communication.
💡2
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Zylo - Amanda Peacock
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Lyndsay Merbach just DMed you! agreed with a lot of what Melissa DiBernardo said. segmentation is key to making it work tbh
mason
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Lyndsay Merbach We just went through something similar. We've took inventory of all the comms being sent to customers, ranked and prioritized them, got everyone to agree that the prioritization was right....then we established a comms governance committee that meets weekly and reviews all communications going to customers. When there's overlap in audience/messaging/personas/etc, we refer to the prioritization that we established. That's high-level. This also helps with the push back, as now everyone has visibility into whats being sent and when. Happy to chat more in depth.
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Leah Miller
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Segmentation is a must. Here to echo the same challenges. We rely on our Marketo comms limits (3 per 7 days) as a forcing function for prioritization. But even with segmentation it’s a big mental puzzle every week. Similar to mason, we also meet bi-weekly to review the calendar with frequent requestors. mason I would love to learn more about the creation and rollout of your governance committee.
mason
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Yeah, happy to chat more! Leah Miller. Here's the 1000ft view of how it operates. We've been able to reduce the volume, mixed messaging, and unsubscribes over the last few months.
❤️1
Lyndsay Merbach
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THANK YOU mason Leah Miller!Love the idea of a comms governance committee! I've been advocating for this and great to hear this is a tried-and-true strategy I can keep pushing for. GREAT idea to align on and enforce a prioritization plan. This is so, so helpful. Appreciate the process chart too mason.
👍1
Lyndsay Merbach
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Melissa DiBernardo That's a really interesting idea I hadn't thought of about segmenting Director+ for Marketing emails and Manager- for Customer Comms with newsletter as exception. That could work for us..... great insights and share! Thank you!
❤️1
Ciana
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For those who have comms governance committees? Who sits on the committee?
👀1
mason
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Ciana customer marketing, Customer success ops, Growth, campaign ops, DG/Email marketing, Support.
2
Rachel Ward
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Liza Pugh 👀
❤️1

Melissa DiBernardo
·
I've lead customer comms at a couple companies and it's a consistent challenge. I'm working though it again now. We limit to "Marketing" 3 emails per 7 days and it's a struggle. This doesn't include the multiple operational emails we send. Personas and segmentation are coming into play. Marketing (growth/upsell) primarily focuses on C suite, VP and Directors. Engagement (customer comms/optimization) is focusing on ICs, Managers and Directors. It's not perfect but it works. We remove the newsletter from the limit so, if customers are suppressed from other emails due to the limits, then they are least get the info in the newsletter. We have also started segmenting newsletters to include some light growth content that's applicable to that audience. And we're quickly building out our community to use as a means of communication.
💡2
❤️2
1
Zylo - Amanda Peacock
·
Lyndsay Merbach just DMed you! agreed with a lot of what Melissa DiBernardo said. segmentation is key to making it work tbh
mason
·
Lyndsay Merbach We just went through something similar. We've took inventory of all the comms being sent to customers, ranked and prioritized them, got everyone to agree that the prioritization was right....then we established a comms governance committee that meets weekly and reviews all communications going to customers. When there's overlap in audience/messaging/personas/etc, we refer to the prioritization that we established. That's high-level. This also helps with the push back, as now everyone has visibility into whats being sent and when. Happy to chat more in depth.
🙌1
Leah Miller
·
Segmentation is a must. Here to echo the same challenges. We rely on our Marketo comms limits (3 per 7 days) as a forcing function for prioritization. But even with segmentation it’s a big mental puzzle every week. Similar to mason, we also meet bi-weekly to review the calendar with frequent requestors. mason I would love to learn more about the creation and rollout of your governance committee.
mason
·
Yeah, happy to chat more! Leah Miller. Here's the 1000ft view of how it operates. We've been able to reduce the volume, mixed messaging, and unsubscribes over the last few months.
❤️1
Lyndsay Merbach
·
THANK YOU mason Leah Miller!Love the idea of a comms governance committee! I've been advocating for this and great to hear this is a tried-and-true strategy I can keep pushing for. GREAT idea to align on and enforce a prioritization plan. This is so, so helpful. Appreciate the process chart too mason.
👍1
Lyndsay Merbach
·
Melissa DiBernardo That's a really interesting idea I hadn't thought of about segmenting Director+ for Marketing emails and Manager- for Customer Comms with newsletter as exception. That could work for us..... great insights and share! Thank you!
❤️1
Ciana
·
For those who have comms governance committees? Who sits on the committee?
👀1
mason
·
Ciana customer marketing, Customer success ops, Growth, campaign ops, DG/Email marketing, Support.
2
Rachel Ward
·
Liza Pugh 👀
❤️1