We’ve been asked this question many times (and have asked it a few times ourselves) – when is the best time to send a marketing email to get the most attention from its recipients?
There are a few widely accepted rules for sending marketing emails:
- Avoid nights and weekends. For most B2B marketers, it’s best to send your email when your audience is at work and paying attention. This may not be true, however, if you are marketing to a consumer group that is active after hours.
- Avoid Mondays and Fridays. Most marketers typically avoid sending an email on Monday for fear of it being deleted by busy readers jumping into their weekly workload. Similarly, Fridays are avoided for the opposite reason – readers are anxious to wrap up for the weekend and may not give your email the time and attention you’d like.
- Mid-day, mid-week emails are the most successful. Tuesdays and Thursdays in particular are the most popular days to send marketing emails. And getting that email in the reader’s inbox between 9:00am and 1:00pm seems to be the sweet spot.
These generalities are important to keep in mind, but they don’t need to be followed to the letter. There is not one “perfect” time to send an email; it depends on your audience. And if you market to different demographic groups, countries or time zones, it can be nearly impossible to reach everyone at the same time.
So, how do you pick a good time to send? Watch the behavior of your readers and make some educated predictions.
Vary Email Sends and Compare Send Statistics
If you send an email on a regular basis – such as a weekly newsletter – try sending it on different days or times each week to see which send gets the highest open or click rates. Or if you plan to send the same email more than once to the same marketing list – an event invitation/reminder, for example – vary the days/times for each email send and evaluate the results.
Keep in mind that if your emails contain different content (i.e. two different weekly newsletters), the content will also affect the click and open rates, not just the delivery time. However, trying out different times may reveal a preference with your audience.
Keep an Eye on Trends
This can be particularly important if you market to an audience that is younger or highly tech-savvy. While users still open the majority of emails on a desktop, mobile open rates are steadily increasing. This could mean that your email is opened later at night or during the weekend as readers are using their mobile devices outside the office. Watching social media to see when your followers are the most active could be helpful as well. Your readers may be likely to interact with an email sent during the same window of time.
Through a little observation and testing, you should be able to get a feel for when your emails have the most impact with your readers. Happy marketing!
Do you have a particular method for determining the best day/time to send your emails? Let us know!
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