Is There a Best Time to Send an Email?

Email marketing is the most effective and popular digital marketing method for boosting revenue. However, it does need several ‘ingredients’ to create a great campaign that leads to conversions.

You need to segment your email list, authenticate your email, and create an awesome subject line. Personalizing your content by addressing your email subscribers by name is another essential element to create more mail opens.

What brings all these ingredients together in email marketing is another important element: timing.

With the number of emails a person gets on a daily basis, your reader isn’t going to open non-essential messages unless it’s the right time.

You need to figure out the best time to send an email blast so that your emails get opened, read, and to get higher conversion rates.

Let’s explore what studies have to say about the right time to send an email blast. We’ll go over the best days and times to send an email message and also if it will help you improve your email marketing conversions.

The best time to launch your email marketing campaign

Several businesses, especially email marketing service providers, have done research on the times and days that optimize the success of your campaigns.

Here are some common findings across several email marketing studies:

The best days to send an email blast is in this order: Tuesday, Thursday, and Wednesday.

Source

The best time to send an email blast?

Here the top timings across different studies in this order: 10 am, 8 pm, 2 pm, and 6 am.

Some of these findings make sense. Mondays are not great because people start a new work week and they’ll be too occupied to open your emails. People prefer to tune out of emails on the weekends too. Although for those seeking things to do during the weekend, Friday email blasts on events and activities can be welcome.

Why is 6 am a good time to send an email? Because 50% of people start the day by emailing in bed and 27% of people head to social media right when they wake up. Early mornings are a good time to catch up with information and you can send your email early in the day to get your audience’s attention.

You should note that the studies that this information is drawn from, don’t really agree on all points. You need to figure out what works for your business and audience. That’s what we’ll cover next.

Figuring out the best time for your email marketing

When all is said and done, these studies can’t tell you the precise time that will give you the best results. We can look at the information given here as guidelines.

There are many factors that will impact the success of your email marketing such as your industry, the current market situation, and of course, your own audience’s lifestyle.

It’s essential to understand your audience first. When you learn who they are and what they do, you can tailor your marketing to get their attention. Here are a few practical things you should do to learn about your audience and the best time to email them:

1. Use analytics: Your website and email analytics solution is your best friend. If you’ve integrated analytics with your email campaigns and website early on, you’re in the best position to find out what works. Get reports and look for patterns where you see higher open or click rates. This will provide you with helpful information
2. Ask for feedback: There’s no need for guesswork if you can get your audience to tell you what they do and how they think. You can send them a simple survey or feedback form and ask them when and how often they check their emails
3. Do split tests: This is likely the most important step you can take. However, you’ll need to use the previous two points to help guide your split testing strategy. Send out email blasts to a limited group of people at various times. Then look at the results to guide your ‘real’ email launch

Taking the time to gather information about your audience and using the best practices that are available will give you a framework to work with.

Send the same message to different groups at different times and look at the results. While weekends and Mondays are considered ‘bad’ days for email marketing, it depends on your audience and their needs.

Remember to keep looking at the data you have to find patterns that boost your email opens.

Conclusion

We’ve just covered some of the latest research that combines studies on the best times for email marketing. However, keep in mind that your business is unique and your audience’s behaviors will be different too. Use the suggestion here to do your research and you’re certain to create an awesome email marketing gameplan.

  This article was written for Business 2 Community by Thomas Griffin.
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Author: Thomas Griffin

Follow @jthomasgriffin

Thomas is the president and co-founder of OptinMonster and TrustPulse, the leading conversion optimization sites.  … View full profile ›

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