Best Time to Send an Email

Did you know there is a best time to send an email? Traditionally, email marketers have adhered to a pretty set schedule when sending email campaigns to their subscriber list. Emails were typically sent between 8 am and 5 pm. However, with the huge shift to mobile, consumers now check their email outside of business hours, and on many different devices. Let the experts at IDM help you understand the current trends that are shifting open rates, and how they can impact your next campaign.

Research shows that there are now a large number of email recipients that are more active during evening hours, from 8 pm to midnight. This group also has the highest number of click-through rates, at 4%. Mobile users tend to check their email five minutes before going to sleep and check again within 5 minutes of waking up. Knowing this, you may want to test sending your campaign outside of business hours, say 7 am or 9 pm. You may find that you are getting better results by making these adjustments.

As for the best day to send out an email, metrics are showing that campaigns sent on Monday had a higher return on investment, but those sent on Friday had higher open rates. Emails sent over the weekend show very high open and click-through rates. A theory on this is that there is less traffic to your inbox over the weekend, so your message is more likely to be seen.  Experimenting with different day and time combinations will help you to find the best results for your business.

Along with selecting a day and time to send out your email, know who you are sending your email to. If you haven’t already done so, create buyer personas. Buyer personas are generalized representations of your ideal customer. When you create these, you can tailor your content to the specific needs of your audience. Create multiple personas to represent different aspects of your clientele. Also, do some market research. Who are you reaching out to? When will they have free time to read an article? Once you have that information, break that list down. Segment your email list by your audience’s interest, location, age, or other criteria that is relevant to your business. Taking the time to understand your audience will have a dramatic effect on the success of your campaign.

So, you’ve done your market research. You’ve created those buyer personas and segmented out those lists. change at all. What’s happening? Well, timing is important, but it isn’t everything. Make sure your email has an engaging subject line. Be personal and make those subject lines descriptive. Also, how long has it been since you have updated your list? If you are working with dead-end email addresses, your message isn’t going to be reaching an audience. Be aware of the frequency that you are sending out emails as well. If you bombard your list with too many emails, they are going to be less likely to engage with you. Do some troubleshooting to narrow down your problems, and your open and click-through rates will improve.

Now the answer to the question that started all of this… When IS the best time to send out an email? The best answer is: It depends on what business you are in, and it depends on who you are contacting. Put the time into your audience research, and you will be rewarded. The team at IDM is available to help you with your marketing needs. Contact us anytime on the web or by phone at 757-809-3959- we are here to help you succeed!