Send one email a month to everyone, with three things in it: what is new, one story from the making and one customer's words. Then send a short extra only when a group of customers has its own reason to hear from you, like regulars seeing the new collection first.
Here is what goes in the monthly email, how to find your groups in the orders you already have, and when an extra is worth sending.
The monthly email, in three parts
What is new. One product, one photo, one line on what it is for. Not the whole range.
A story from the making. The supplier you visited, the new glaze you tested, the bench on a Friday afternoon.
One customer's words. A review or a message, used with their permission, exactly as they wrote it.
A bakery's email: the new seeded rye, the starter that turned ten this spring, and a regular's note about Saturday breakfast. It reads in a minute on a phone, and people open the next one because this one was worth it. Send it on the same day each month, so people know when to expect it and you stop having to decide.
Find your groups in the orders you already have
Your order history already sorts your customers. Start with two or three groups: regulars who order again and again, gift buyers who send to another address or add a note, and first-time buyers.
A candle label that spends an hour with its orders finds a small group of regulars who buy every new scent, and a separate group who only buy in December, always with a gift note. That is two groups, each with its own reason to hear from you. Reading your last twenty orders shows you how to find yours.
Send an extra when a group has its own reason
An extra email is short: three lines and a picture, sent only to the group it is for. It goes out when that group has a reason the rest of the list does not share.
A jewellery maker shows regulars the new collection two days before everyone else, with a line to thank them for coming back. Three weeks before Christmas, the gift buyers get a reminder of what they chose last year and the last day to order for delivery in time. Neither email would mean much to the whole list. To the group it is for, each one is welcome.
Personalisation is what knowing your customers gives you, not how you get to know them.
Start with the groups, not the software
Email tools offer endless ways to split a list. Leave them until you know your groups and what each one needs to hear. The email tool you already have is enough to send to two or three of them.
A skincare shop that starts with its groups writes one monthly email and two short extras a season, and every one of them sounds like the shop. Where to invite people onto the list, and the test that keeps every email welcome, is in how to build a list people are glad to stay on.
What CP3® does here
CP3® does not send email. The emails are yours to write and send. What it gives you is the voice to write them in: Brand Scan reads your tone of voice into one profile you can write every email from, so the inbox sounds like the feed. Branded Content drafts the posts for the same week, so the new collection your regulars see first by email arrives on Instagram a few days later saying the same thing.