Mobiles had huge influence on email marketing in the past decade. Before we had smartphones we read emails on our desktop and our habits were fairly consistent. But now all of us have devices in our pockets that notify us instantly when a new email arrives.
We are not aiming to give you a specific time of day when to send your mail – that would be impossible without knowing details about your target audience. Everything depends on your audience, so always invest your time to learn about them.
We will give you some guidelines, which will help you to get started with the testing of your audience.
If you want to get noticed, go for the active hours!
Statistics show that the best time to send your mail is around midday – not counting lunch brakes, during which people are less likely to check their accounts.
Most people check emails on their phone regularly. This is pretty much the first thing in the morning and last thing before going to bed. But it is easy to figure out that these are not the optimal times for them to receive your mail.
If you want them to click through – and we assume you want that – they should be in a mood to do so and also have the time for it. They will probably have a dozen or more email in the morning to skim through and they won’t stop to read yours and follow as a lead unless you are very, very special in some way. Also, they will not be interested in your offer when they are preparing for sleep.
Image source: Getresponse.com
Working hours are in most case the best choice, between 9 am and 5 pm – excluding the lunch break between 1 and 2 pm.
If you have a special offer, the morning is your optimal time – studies have shown that people are more receptive to those in their first active hours, while later in the day they like to read informational emails more.
The most active period overall is between 2 and 5 pm according to MailChimp.
Image source: Econsultancy.com
Naturally it is important to also choose the best day of the week. A study conducted by Oracle’s Responsys showed that the most click-throughs take place on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday – the middle of the week.
Friday delivers the lowest rates while Tuesday has the most opens and click-throughs.
But opens are also high on the weekends – you may think people don’t want to be disturbed when they rest, but statistics show that they are actually more likely to open and read you mail then. Considering that in the weekend they are less stressful and have more time, this is not that surprising after all.
Image source: Kissmetrics.com
But what about frequency?
If you flood the recipients’ inbox with emails, they will get tired of you – if you send out too little, they may easily forget about you and you will miss valuable opportunities.
You should indeed send at least one email ****in every 30 days. But be careful! Always include valuable information in your email campaigns. Never send an email without real value added for your audience.
You may have new offers every day, but it is likely that they will not care about them that often. Segment your lists and try to find what the different segments of your subscribers want. Send them personalized offers few times a month, and they will be more likely to be interested in what you have.
Test, test and test some more!
What you should do is run tests: send out mails in various times and see how they perform. You will get extremely valuable data about your very own audience which you should use to improve your timing.
Now you only have to craft that email in your responsive email editor very carefully – make it informative and noticeable enough so your recipients can really feel they get some value from it.
