Timing is everything – right? It may not be everything, but it does matter, especially when it comes to open rates on your email marketing.
So when is the best time to send out an email? This is something I am asked over and over again by clients. Below are some tips, which are widely accepted by the email marketing community:
- Mondays. You should avoid sending out emails on Mondays. This is because people are back to work and normally march into a busy office after the weekend.
- Daytime. Although a little obvious, it’s normally better to send out email campaigns during the daytime rather than when people are asleep.
- Weekends. When sending emails to businesses, weekends tend to have low open rates, as most people are enjoying time off work. However, we have an interesting case study to look at later on in this blog where a client of ours did send an email out to business contacts when not many people were in the office but received a huge increase in open rates.
- Tuesdays and Thursdays. These days have traditionally been favourites to send email campaigns. MailChimp confirms that Tuesdays and Thursdays are the two most popular days to send email blasts.
So does this mean you should stick to the rules above? The answer to that is no, personally I don’t feel there is a “best time” to send your email communications – it really depends on your target audience.
This might seem as a cop-out answer. But it is true. However, this being said it is best to take these guidelines into account and don’t disregard them completely. While there are certain days and times that are recommended by the digital marketing community, it really does depend on your audience and I would really recommend testing to see what works best for you.
A client of ours; Select Apartments recently sent an email during the July London Tube Strikes to a database of professionals who mainly worked in and around London. The first thought by Management was that as no one would be at work, therefore there would be a low open rate. However, they decided to send, test and see what the results would be. By complete surprise they received a 27% open rate compared to their average 17%.
There has also been recent evidence documented that sending emails on a Sunday evening can be a great time to target higher management and CEOs, as this tends to be the time that people check their emails once the children are in bed before returning to work the next day. This really does prove that depending on your target market there might be other times, which ensure better open rate success.
Following on from this please remember that bad open rates are not just about when you send your emails. There are lots of other things to also consider including:
- Subject Line. Subject lines are hugely important when it comes to email marketing. Some say that a subject line is even more important than the main email copy itself. This is because it’s the subject lines’ job to get people opening your email to begin with. Make sure you have a grabbing subject line… maybe even split test your subject line to ensure the best results.
- Are your emails mobile-friendly? There is no question your emails must be easy to read on a mobile.
- Are you sending too many emails? No one likes lots of emails. Make sure you are not sending out too many emails to your audience and try to ensure that the content is relevant to them.
- Don’t forget to ensure your email is optimised so it doesn’t get picked up in spam filters.
If you would like some more advice on email marketing please send me an email: victoria.hilditch@
We don’t just ensure emails look pretty we also put in techniques and strategy to ensure they work as well.
