Email Marketing - Determining the Best Time and Day to Send Your Emails

By now, we've covered quite a bit of information about Email Marketing - How to Grow Your List, How to Get Your Emails Opened, Creating Valuable and Relevant Content, How to Get Your Readers to Forward Your Emails, and How Often to Send Your Emails. Now we're on to Determining the Best Time and Day to Send your Emails. I can’t really give you a definitive day and time that is best for your Email campaign. I can tell you how to get the best results for your campaigns.

Below are the pros and cons of sending Emails for each day of the week:

Monday
Pro: Office work has not filled inboxes yet
Con: Consumers are in “work mode” and won’t be focused on non-work tasks
Best Practice: Send emails late Monday morning, after consumers have cleaned the weekend spam from their inboxes

Tuesday
Pro: People have organized their week, and can find personal time for emails
Con: Emails poised for a weekend response may be too early
Best Practice: Use Tuesday for emails that request action during the workweek

Wednesday/Thursday
Pro: Consumers are planning their weekends and gearing up for personal time
Con: Time during the workweek is running short, and requested action may be pushed back to the following week, or even forgotten about
Best Practice: Focus leisure and weekend notifications during these key weekend planning days

Friday
Pro: Studies indicate fewer total emails sent compared to the rest of the week, increasing visibility among the myriad of other messages
Con: Consumers hurry to leave the office early, and may not take time to view non-work related emails
Best Practice: Send emails early in the day to give consumers more time to take action. An unopened email from Friday will sort to the bottom of an inbox on Monday, and is often discarded

Weekends
Pro: People check emails on weekends, too, so weekends may have untapped potential
Con: A weekend email may seem overly-intrusive to some people
Best Practice: If possible, try to avoid Sundays and focus on Saturdays, which may have a better response rate
Source: 60secondmarketer.com

Test and Test Again

• Before sending out a mass Email, set up 2 or 3 test groups - one for each different day that you are considering sending Emails.
• Send your email to each test group at three different times throughout the day.
• Monitor your success rate by tracking how many actions were made – clicks, forwards, purchases, etc …
• Thoroughly evaluate your test groups with each Email campaign.
• Send your mass Email campaign on the day and time that you achieved the best results.
• Test and test again with each Email campaign to refine your Email Marketing program and make sure your marketing dollars are well spent.