This question comes up in almost every workshop I teach and in nearly every podcast interview. And for good reason! 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.
As a result, most people end up either defaulting to someone else’s recommendation, even though they might have a completely different business model, or end up paralyzed by indecision or fear of doing it wrong.
So a while back, I ran an informal poll to my Automate with Heart newsletter subscribers and asked: How often do you send a newsletter?
Not surprisingly, the results were mixed:
Over half of my subscribers who responded said about weekly. Around a quarter said every other week to monthly. The rest were split between multiple times a week and less than monthly.
But what was more interesting than the numbers themselves was the reasoning behind them.
Three patterns of why business owners choose their email marketing frequency
Three pretty distinct patterns showed up, particularly among those who responded that they send their newsletters weekly:
Pattern #1: Someone told you a specific cadence is “best practice”
You send a newsletter at a particular cadence – usually weekly or multiple times a week – not because it’s the best frequency for your business, but because someone told you to do it this often. Or you’ve read that it’s “best practice”.
And maybe that works for you, and that’s fine! But for some businesses, doing it at this cadence could actually be hurting your business, for reasons we’ll get into below.
Pattern #2: You don’t know why you do this cadence, but you’ve been doing it for so long that now it’s a habit
Maybe you can’t quite articulate why you send at newsletters at the cadence that you do, but at this point you’ve been doing it for so long that it’s simply become a habit.
Interestingly, this actually can be its own kind of reason. The cadence creates accountability, the accountability creates consistency, and the consistency builds a connection with your subscribers and network over time.
(In full disclosure, I very much fit into this bucket as well!)
If it works for you, I’d say keep doing it, even if you don’t quite know why you’re doing it.
Pattern #3: You made a deliberate choice
For a much smaller group of business owners, your newsletter frequency has been a deliberate choice, and you can pinpoint the exact reasons for why you landed on it:
- Maybe you know you can’t sustain weekly – which is a very legitimate reason – so you do it every-other-week or monthly.
- Perhaps you’ve found a middle ground that fits your capacity and your audience.
- Or maybe you experimented with different cadences, landed on monthly and now your audience genuinely looks forward to seeing your monthly missive.
What struck me about that last pattern wasn’t just that they were more intentional with their newsletter cadence.
They also seemed more at ease and more confident with their decision.
That’s what I’m actually trying to help my clients to achieve, and what I want for you.
Instead of choosing a cadence that someone told you to do without actually understanding your business, I want you to make a deliberate choice that fits your business and how you actually work.
So how exactly do you get there?
The Email Cadence Calibration Framework: Five dials to help you determine the right email frequency for your expertise-based business
I think of finding the right email cadence a little like making the perfect cup of coffee.
In 2020, my husband and I took a virtual coffee-making class with a coffee master based in Mexico City. We learned a variety of methods, including French press, drip, AeroPress, moka pot, and pour-over (my personal favorite).
The thing I took away from that class, aside from measuring everything in grams: there is no one right way to make coffee.
The “perfect” cup depends on your maker, your grind, your water temperature, how long it brews – and of course, how strong or weak you like your coffee to be.
A lot of email marketing strategy works the same way.
Whether it’s deciding to turn on your double opt-in, if you should resend your unopened newsletters, or how often you should email your list, there is no single “right” way to do email marketing.
(Well, with the exception of using consent-based practices in email marketing. That applies across the board!)
Instead, when it comes to email frequency, I look at it as a set of dials. Each one you turn up or down so that you can determine the right-fit newsletter cadence for your business.
I call this the Email Cadence Calibration Framework, and it has five dials:
Dial 1: What type of newsletter are you writing?
Your newsletter style comes first because it shapes everything else.
A Founder Newsletter – where you’re sharing thought leadership, personal perspective, and what’s happening behind the scenes of your business – tends to dial frequency down. (Thought leadership content in particular takes considerable time and care to produce.)
In contrast, a Brand Newsletter, where it’s less about you and more focused on heavily promoting your products and services, tends to dial frequency up.
And finally a Hybrid Newsletter sits somewhere in between, depending on your mix of content and how heavily you’re selling.
Dial 2: Who is your primary audience that you’re emailing?
Generally, if you’re writing to consumers or online entrepreneurs, you’ll email more frequently than if your audience is fellow professionals, referral partners, organizations, or executives/C-suite leaders.
It’s also worth asking whether your newsletter is primarily directed at people who might buy from you, or at your peer and referral network. Those are two different jobs, and they often require a different frequency.
Dial 3: What is your business model?
Specifically, what are you selling, and how many clients or customers do you need?
I find Dr. Michelle Mazur’s framework for expertise-based businesses really useful here. She breaks them into three categories, and each model tends toward a different cadence (tends being the operative word):
Business Model #1: High-touch businesses working with organizations or C-suite clients who need a handful of engagements a year and largely get them through referrals.
Business Model #2: Scalable service providers like coaches and consultants working with 20 to 40 clients a year who need to stay visible to people who aren’t ready yet; and
Business Model #3: Leveraged model businesses – memberships, courses, digital products – serving higher volumes of clients.
If your business runs on one or two major clients or contracts a year, you probably don’t need a weekly newsletter. A consistent quarterly or monthly update to your network might be genuinely enough.
But if you’re selling to dozens or hundreds of people – a membership, a course, a group program – you’ll likely need to turn this dial up. For scalable and leveraged models – where most of my email marketing clients land – cadence varies a lot even within the same category. That’s because the other dials, especially audience and volume, do a lot of the heavy lifting.
Dial 4: How urgent is your people’s need?
This is probably the most nuanced dial of the five, and the most complicated to pin down.
Some businesses have a clear trigger point, a specific moment in time when someone goes from “not ready” to “I need this now.”
A salary negotiation coach I worked with is a great example. Her clients typically need her within a very short window of time of receiving a job offer. When someone needs her, they need her fast.
For a business like hers, being top of mind at the right moment matters more than how often you show up. You can’t manufacture the trigger. You can only make sure you’re the person they think of when it happens.
For other businesses, the need is more internal and slow-moving. Someone gradually deciding they’re ready to invest in their career, switch from working in public service to starting their own business, or niche down in their field. For those audiences, consistent visibility over time is what does the work. You’re building by showing up consistently, and guiding them to the decision that they need to invest in your products or services.
Dial 5: What can you realistically sustain?
This is the dial that is generally never mentioned, but matters just as much as the others, if not more.
A monthly newsletter sent consistently over two years is worth far more than a weekly one abandoned after six weeks. Consistency builds trust, and going quiet for three months after a burst of activity does more damage to that trust than a slower, consistent cadence ever would.
If the other five dials point you toward weekly but you know you can’t sustain it, dial it down. Every other week, monthly. Whatever you will actually do consistently is the better answer.
Three examples of the Cadence Calibration Framework in action
Here’s how the five dials play out across three of my real clients, and why the right cadence looks different for each of them.
Alex: Weekly newsletter
Alex supports medical professionals and academics who have medical writing businesses and want to either niche down to the specific type of medical writing she teaches, or grow their practice. She runs a membership with evergreen offers and some launches mixed in.
- Newsletter type: Brand – oriented around her programs and offers
- Audience: Medical professionals and academics making career development decisions
- Business model: Leveraged model – membership plus digital products, serving higher volume across multiple offers
- Trigger: Slow internal decision – her audience gradually decides they’re ready to invest in their growth. There’s generally not an external event that kicks it off. Instead, it’s an internal shift that takes time.
- Capacity: Sustainable at weekly with the right system in place
Why weekly makes sense: Because Alex’s audience is making a slow internal decision, and her audience comes from academia and medicine, and make decisions based on evidence and a very high level of trust, she needs consistent visibility while that shift is taking shape. A weekly cadence keeps her top of mind and gives her audience enough time with her voice and perspective before they’re ready to buy.
Steve: Monthly and quarterly newsletters
Steve sells prep courses for people studying for professional licensure exams that allow them to advance in their field.
- Newsletter type: Brand – focused on his courses and supporting students through their prep
- Audience: Professionals in career advancement mode
- Business model: Leveraged model, but with demand that’s tied to predictable exam cycles rather than an ongoing need
- Trigger: Acute and seasonal. People need his courses at specific, predictable moments. The timing is external and tied to exam schedules, rather than a slow internal burn.
- Capacity: Monthly is manageable and sustainable
Active students get monthly because they’re in the middle of the work and need regular contact and support.
People who passed all of the exams receive a separate quarterly newsletter because they’ve moved past the acute need, but they’re potentially some of his best sources of referrals. Quarterly keeps his business top of mind for that without over-emailing a group that’s moved on.
(Part of our work together was identifying that alumni segment and building a separate cadence for them.)
Chelsea: Monthly and weekly newsletters
Chelsea is a therapist with a private practice serving several distinct audiences with different needs.
Colleagues and referral partners get monthly:
- Newsletter type: Founder – thought leadership, perspective, practice and personal updates
- Audience: Professional peers and referral network
- Business model: (Irrelevant for this group)
- Trigger: No clear tipping point – referrals happen organically when the right match comes up
- Capacity: Because Chelsea shares personal updates with lots of photos, doing this more frequently would eat away too much of her time.
Chelsea isn’t selling to this audience. Instead, the purpose of this newsletter is for her to stay connected with her network and stay top of mind when a referral opportunity comes up. Monthly is enough to maintain that relationship without over-emailing professional peers.
Coaching and supervision prospects get weekly:
- Newsletter type: Hybrid leaning brand – her perspective mixed with content oriented toward her offers
- Audience: Individuals considering working with her for coaching or supervision
- Business model: High-touch 1:1 and group, so she needs a consistent pipeline
- Trigger: Mix of slow internal decision for people interested in coaching with more urgent for people who need supervision in order to become licensed social workers. People need to build trust before hiring someone for this kind of work
- Capacity: Sustainable with the right system in place (which is where our work together focused)
This group is making a slower, more personal decision. They need more time with Chelsea’s voice and perspective before they’re ready to reach out, and weekly builds that trust over time.
Getting Chelsea’s cadence right wasn’t just about frequency. It was about building a system that made showing up for two very different audiences feel manageable.
The Email Cadence Calibration Framework at a glance
The chart below will help you to determine the best newsletter frequency for your expertise-based business.
Keep in mind, there are not hard-and-fast rules, so use the chart below as a guide to help you think through what makes sense for your business:
| Dial | Turn down toward less frequent | Turn up toward more frequent |
|---|---|---|
| Dial 1: Newsletter type | Founder | Brand |
| Dial 2: Audience | Professional peers, referral network, B2B, C-suite | Consumers, online entrepreneurs |
| Dials 3: Business model | High-touch services, few clients needed | Memberships, digital products, group programs; higher volume needed |
| Dial 4: Trigger | Acute, seasonal, or time-specific need | Slow internal decision, no clear tipping point |
| Dial 5: Capacity | Lower bandwidth or solo without support | Higher bandwidth or team support |
If your current cadence feels off, or if you’re not sure your setup even makes it possible to show up the way you want to, that’s exactly what I help people sort out. Download the services guide to learn how I can support your business, or book a Power Hour and we can get your cadence dialed in together.
The Email Cadence Calibration Framework is an email strategy methodology that was developed in 2026 by Bev Feldman, an email marketing strategist and Kit Certified Expert at Your Personal Tech Fairy, where she offers done-for-you email marketing services for credentialed professionals who built their business on their expertise and didn’t set out to become marketers.