There can be no doubt that the latest figures, not yet confirmed, of the GDP for the final quarter of 2010 do not make reassuring reading. Whether the drop of around 0.5% is right or not, the suggestion that the best we can hope for is no change comes as a bit of a shock.

Whilst it is somewhat better for those of us engaged in email marketing, reports suggesting that total value has gone up although the actual figure is still to be decided, it does not mean we can relax with smug smiles on our faces. We need to extract every last bit of value from our email lists if we want to thrive. If things get any worse we might need to just to survive.

Enough bad news: there are some simple and straightforward ways of increasing revenue via our email lists. Ask yourself why you have chosen the specific frequency for your marketing emails. Was it evidence based, perhaps you took it over, or maybe you have used previous experience. One hopes it was not a guess as this goes against everything email marketing stands for. If it was not sourced through recent experimentation then it is time to find out what is best for you.

Say you send out marketing emails every calendar month. You want to try and see if upping the rate hurts the numbers subscribing to your email list. You could go for two a month but that is a massive rise in frequency and you risk alienating your customers. How about going for every four weeks? That’s a increase of around 8%. It is a start and there is always the opportunity to go further later.

Take a statistically significant number of subscribers from your email list and try them at the new rate. There is no need to risk you most valuable customers. After three months your email marketing software will indicate if there is a rise in revenue and whether there was an unhealthy increase in unsubscribes. You choice should be clear.

Email marketing is all about being able to establish limits through accurate feedback. Precision is everything.