This is the story of two different entrepreneurs, both employing different small business email marketing strategies to drive profits with current customers and reach new ones. Why are the email marketing strategies different? Simple. Their customers, they have found, tend to check email at different times during the week and they’ve spent long hours figuring out the best day to send marketing emails.
Ron Bloom is the owner of a successful cleaning supplies business. A traditional B2B outfit, his company is focused on selling cleaning supplies to other businesses that have a physical location. Because he sells over the Internet he isn’t limited in any real geography. But because he sells to other business owners only, not consumers, he understands that his target customer – no matter the industry – tends to open up and check email at a certain point during the week. How does he know? He’s spent the past few years testing and studying and even asking many of his customers. Ron has found success sending his emails between Mondays and Wednesdays.
The same can be said of Cathy Stronger, who is the founder of a company that offers custom designer jewelry. Like Ron much of her business is done over the Internet so she knows no boundaries in her marketing, sales and business development. She, too, has done testing on her small business email marketing strategy and found that her customers tend to be in the buying mindset at a certain time of the week as well. The clear majority of her customers are the exact opposite of Ron’s since she sells to female consumers who may or may not be running a business. And although many of them may work for a living, the majority of them don’t consider the jewelry purchase as one for a business. Cathy has found success sending her emails between Thursdays and Sundays.
It should be noted that although there are clear differences between the two businesses and their customers, the email marketing strategies for both aren’t always clear cut. There is no science to the timing of email marketing, only footprints and guidelines that have been tested by people and businesses in the past. Plus, email marketing is constantly changing and their strategies may be forced to shift over time. The best day to send marketing emails for one company isn’t always the best for every company.
Ron believes since his customers are in a strict business mindset they tend to think of business matters between early and mid week. Contrary to this, Cathy believes her consumer customers tend to think of pampering themselves on the weekend. And as the weekend approaches, she sends out her email marketing to a customer base that is more than happy to receive and more often consider a purchase for an upcoming special occasion around the corner.
Now, after saying all that it should be noted that this strategy won’t work for everyone nor will it always work for Ron and Cathy. They will be the first ones to tell you there is a lot more that goes into their strategy besides a business or consumer focus. Other factors, such as holidays, events, seasons and even the economy all drive their strategies. For example, if Christmas falls on a Wednesday Ron won’t send out an email on that Monday or Tuesday. The same can be said of other major holidays.
Here are a few other guidelines:
–Study past results: Your own data can be very important here. In the next tip we’ll talk about vendor tools but sometimes the best way to see if a strategy is working is to look at your own sales data to identify trends and problem areas.
–Use reporting tools from vendors to study benchmarks: For example, MailChimp has excellent analytics and tools that breakdown the success/fail rates of each mailing. Use this information to shape and drive future small business email marketing strategies.
–Clicks and conversions: There’s a difference between a customer clicking through your email and one that actually ends up making a purchase. This is a big distinction and it’s important to study these trends as well.
–Landing page: Yes, where your customers end up can make a world of difference. Make sure you have the right landing page design and functionality.
–Business during the week: If you’re targeting business owners or people using your product for business, the best time to send an email may be between Tuesday and Wednesday.
–Consumer during the weekend: If you’re sending an email to a consumer (B2C) the best time to send your emails may be between Thursday and Sunday.
–Previous two tips may be meaningless: There is no guarantee that this approach will work best for your company, depending on a variety of factors explained in these other tips.
–How long to get the email out: Do you know how long it takes to actually send your email? If you schedule it for send on Tuesday morning but a grouping on your list doesn’t actually receive the email until late Wednesday evening, do you know this and account for it?
–List segmentation: One possible reason why you would want to throw out these two tips is because you aren’t properly segmenting your email list into possible new buyers, current buyers, and previous buyers. Remember, each has a different motivator and it’s up to you to identify those hot buttons. Thus, timing of your email will massage each hot button differently.
–Trigger events: Also affecting the timing are trigger events (birthdays, holidays and other life events). If you’ve studied your customer you’ll know when these take place and will be able to schedule email delivery accordingly.
–Auto responders: Setting up auto responders can help build trust with your audience, since people want to know you’re on top of it. After someone clicks through and makes a purchase, send them an automatic email 10 minutes later acknowledging their purchase. Send them another email 24 hours later reminding them of any shipping updates. If they simply signed up for more information, send them an email 36 hours later informing them of deals, specials or incentives they can take advantage of.
–Let the customer decide: Advanced email marketers will sometimes let the customer decide when they want to receive the email. This tactic isn’t considered a beginner step (which is what we focus on primarily on this blog) but is one that could make a big difference in success rates.
Have any other ideas you’d want to add to this list? Please do so by leaving a comment below.
You may not like hearing this but the best day to send email is the day that your email performs the best. And you’ll only know that by testing it. And then, test it again. The ‘best day’ varies so much by company, audience, your other marketing activities and then your email messaging. Sometimes it turns out the best performing day is the day you’ve been historically emailing (you have trained a behviour). But from my own experience, Sunday and Tuesday worked out well with Friday morning surprising us a good performer as well. Time of day also matters. But, your demographic, where they access your email, and what the call to action is (i.e., shopping, content gathering, social interaction, contests, etc) will all influence what day performs best for you. Finally, the make up of the list –size and amount of inactives — influence success greatly, so you certainly will want to examine your segmentation and pulling some of your inactives in your tests. Hope some of this helps you. Good luck.
Hello there,
I would think that mid week like Wednesday would have the best response rate in an email campaign. I would also think that Monday and Friday would have the lowest response rate. Mid week – the weekend is over and you’ve had time to catch up on things not done or answered from the previous week, and review some new emails.
Someone once told me that Tuesday morning’s are a good time – but don’t have any stats to justify it! Although interestingly, Friday afternoons proved a popular time for people to accept invites to corporate hospitality functions/events.
We have found that for B2B email campaigns, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday after 10:00 am. For B2C campaigns, you have test and track because behavior varies. Sometimes weekends work, other times, evenings.
I just asked this question to an old salt of a salesman and he said avoid mon morning and friday afternoons like the plague. They put your message immediate in a queue of priority and sales is always last.
The million dollar question!!! With so much email marketing going around these days i’m not sure as to a definitive answer but as a rule i always avoid Monday (depending on region e.g. in the Middle East Saturday or Sunday is the start of the working week)
I think more than the day us marketeers should focus on content and segmenting your database to ensure you hit your desired audience. We should try not to hit 70 year old Albert with an email about hair loss treatment – this is just a case i heard about recently.
Thanks, Rayna. Testing is so ultra important.
Like Rayna pointed out, these rules are good but it’s always best to test.
Thanks for the insight. Always important to have the stats and data to look inside the numbers.
Thanks, Robert. I often ask myself, would I send a client an email at this time? If no, it may be wise to hold off.
And does the best day change depending on your market?
I think you should customize your approach every chance you get, Miki.
Completely agree with Reyna – the beauty of email is you can test and measure everything. Marketers today don’t know how lucky they are! If you’re not using all the testing potential of your emailing programme you should be!
Like Clare, I agree with Rayna. Test test test. Move things around. Test more. Tweak the design. Test more.
Hope everyone is having a great day!
I used to think it was Tuesdays and Thursdays, but found that it depends on what you’re sending out, and the industry.
If you’re sending out a newsletter to someone who requested it, anytime will do. If you’re sending out a sales email to a targeted list, you’ll have to test for your product. Different days yielded different results for different types of companies.
I always send mine out late Friday evening with the theory that my customers spend more time with personal web browsing on the weekend. That’s when I do more personal browsing. I get more on line consult requests over the weekends as well.
@Samantha. I agree with Tuesday and Wednesday because Monday individuals are still stuck in weekend mode or they are tired and Thursday/Friday are tied into the weekend. Those are generalities but if you put yourself in those days it makes sense. However, what Ryan said testing is best and Michael is right with the type of communication being sent.
Honestly, if it’s someone that I’m going to be sending things frequently I’ll call or email asking what time is best for them to receive emails. This is great because receiving the communication is useless if it’s opened then tossed to the side without receiving the proper attention required.
Everyone is different. I’ve met people that prefer receiving documents 7:00am any day of the week so they can review and adjust during their morning commute.
Michael, good point. Sending an email people are “expecting” is always going to call for a different strategy than sending one that is more considered sales.
Gosh! – I’m astonished reading this thread at the way in a world where you can actually test and measure, people still prefer to speculate or make judgements and assumptions based entirely on their own personal feelings and preferences. Using hunches and judgements is a good place to start as in “Logic tells me that Tuesday afternoon (or other) is likely to be a good time for my market/ customers/ etc based on ….” – but please PROVE your hunches by testing other days/ times with the same email. Why on earth wouldn’t you?
Always good to get a reality check, huh Clare lol? Hard not to side with you, especially since I made it a point to repeatedly state that one thing won’t always work for everyone. Heck one thing won’t always work for the same business more than once!
We tested in the B2B segment and found out Thursday late afternoon, we had the best opening rate. The interesting was that receivers open the e-mails not in the office, but when they work from home in the evening (no busy time, not meeting pressure).
I do my best to send them out late at night, or before I leave for the office in the morning in an attempt to be the first one or two messages at the top of the in box! As to day – there is never a day which is convenient for someone to receive an unsolicited email, but if you can make it ‘fun’ that helps!
I think that for some fields or activities monday is ok.
It’s like to put a paper on the desk of the people…
They have it there at the beginning of the week, then they respond as soon as they can, but only if they like it.
Also they way in which you write your email is very important.
And if you offer some services maybe is good to know those information at the beginning of the week giving the people the opportunity to plan all their activities.
Erika,
Monday’s not always good. If sending to a company it gets buried in all of the stuff sent from Friday at 5pm until Monday morning at 9.
for global campaigns i target a wednesday evening/ thursday morning IST (GMT + 5:30)– this catches most people mid-week, when their mailboxes are not too full.
I agree with Pavitra. I practice the same schedule wrt campaigns /newsletters. Yes, Miki, the best day or just the day will change depending on the Market , esp when you target Mid east countries where the weekend is Fri-Sat.
Test, test and test is the only answer. There are a lot of benchmarks out there, but I agree with Rayna and several others – it depends on your target market & message.
One thing we do is test the day a lot, but our email marketing vendor doesn’t currently automate testing for time of day – which we want to measure. We do a bit of manual testing but it is a lot harder. Any recommendations?
Also, if you are curious, we recently shared research about what days / times are most active on twitter (and therefore best for retweets & the like): http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4829/Announcing-the-June-2009-State-of-the-Twittersphere-Report.aspx
Cheers all, Kirsten
Thanks for the link, Kirsten.
I’m sure it’s be said before but “relevance” and “engagement” will always trump any metric for times of sending.
My non-essential emails tend to fall in to 1 of 3 categories
1) Spam –
100% deleted before opening unless it’s a really clever wheeze!
2) Possibly relevant from a known brand/company –
I may or may not open these, if frequency is too high (but not offensively so) then I delete or read depending on how I feel and how much time I have
3) Probably relevant from a known brand/company.
This is the one I find still marked as unread, even a week or two later. I know I’m going to get something from it, so it doesn’t get deleted until read. Obviously if it’s time-sensitive you rely on the subject line copy
Option 1 makes timing irrelevant
Option 2 – could well be the stuff that is more prone to time of despatch/receipt due to the user’s lifestyle
Option 3 – Timing almost becomes irrelevant again as these are “keepers”
Lee
I would avoid Monday mornings and Friday afternoons. But the main element is that EDM that you plan to use needs to be crisp and shud have a strong message with some incentives and clear next actions.
Other than that, testing is the best solution of what works for what category of mails/customers.
Joy,
How can you just say “Thursday” without knowing the industry, audience, or product. After 6 months of testing we found that an online flower delivery client had best results on Monday. While I wouldn’t just make a blanket statement that Monday was the best day, I would say, from an educated standpoint, that Monday is good for online flower delivery services and that making sure numbers are in the subject are helpful.
We tested all the work days, and over time it became clear that there was little performance difference between Tues., Weds., or Thurs. Like others have said, avoid Mon. and Fri.
Paul, could you clarify which industry and which audience you did this for. Even the folks at Constant Contact or Bronto will tell you that different days are good for different people. Baby Boomers are notoriously easier to reach on weekends, GenX checks their email once an hour. GenY is easier to reach via SMS or Facebook. Latinos are better reached via SMS during the week.
We’ve tested it for many years now and we feel that is our best day to send due to the response level we receive. Just like others are stating not to send Monday or Friday our best day to send is Thursday. We services over 350 different industries so that’s why I say to test and see which one works best for your company’s needs.
It depends on your audience. The corporate audience is normally best served via the 10-2 Tuesday through Thursday window. Often the consumer is best touched right before the weekend so they can do their shopping with offer in hand over the weekend. We look at each situation seperately but those are reasonable guidelines.
Friday seems to be the day that many people are not in the office. I get more “out of reply” messages on Friday than any other day. Wednesday is what I shoot for but I also put it on sllideshare with Linkedin.
You folks are funny. There must be a lot of psychics in this group because all I hear is a lot of non-scientific mumbo jumbo. There is no universal best day or time, especially if you are in a global market. Earth is round and at 2:01pm EST on Tuesday (or whatever date/time combo you prefer) many Earthlings will not be around to receive email (they may be at dinner, asleep, in transit, whatever). Aside from that, there are so many variables that these guesstimates are really lame.
The real issue is communication and the better question is how do we get messages to our audiences wherever they are, whenever they want them, in the format and language they desire, on the device of their choice.
Email is a dying communication platform for marketing. And folks in a social media group ought to know this already.
You are all going to laugh at me . . .
I’ve been sending a weekly email to our distributors for over five years with a read rate of 50 percent. The read rate hasn’t varied even as the list has grown nearly 2000 percent.
When do I send it? Every Sunday at noon. My original intent was for it to be in their mailbox when they arrived on Monday morning (it’s called Design Monday). But, about 1/3 of the reads are on Sunday.
I have customers who tell me they can tell it’s noon because their Blackberry chimes.
Maybe I would have chosen a different time and day if I’d been more knowledgeable, but now I’d be thrown to the wolves if Design Monday didn’t hit their mailboxes on Sunday.
Go figure.
I send my emails at different times and any day of the week. I find Tues – Thurs on their desk by 8am is the best. It is usually the first one they get and will most likely read it because they aren’t bored yet.
In 36 months and over 300 deployments, we have found no “sweet spot.” We’ve had off the charts opens at 4:00 EST on a Friday and then couldn’t come close to duplicating the stats so we went back to an AM deployment.
We’ve actually had success with Sunday deployments. The thinking is people are review emails prior to Monday’s work day.
I’m with Rayna especially because you need to take into account the level of personalization and the strength of a call to action.
Case in point. We sell bird supplies. Our travel cage category does very well. Send an email with the subject line “Are you Prepared to Evacuate Your Bird in an Emergency” 7:00 AM EST the day 3 hurricanes are landing on the Gulf coast and guess what? Open rates skyrocket –
Suggest reading – Meatball Sundae by Seth Grodin – http://www.amazon.com/Meatball-Sundae-Your-Marketing-Sync/dp/1591841747
We have implemented campaigns for both B2B and B2C markets. Based on these previous campaigns, the findings were:
B2B – the campaigns were opened and clicked through the most on Friday mornings. Monday has the lowest rate of click through.
B2C – the campaigns were opened and clicked through the most on Wednesday or Thursday evenings. However, it should be known that where a consumer does sign up for this campaign, timing may not be as relevant as the rate of consistency. Setting weekly campaigns will generate anticipation, where the consumer will be expecting the email, and possibly even be disappointed if it isn’t received (we should all be so lucky!)
Scott, I agree a lot with your message, especially about communication and developing relationships with your clients. However, I think where most companies make their mistake of email marketing is sending out either TOO many emails OR nothing relevant about sending it, except “buy this” or “special,” or whatever the pitch may be…the key to successful marketing – at any level – it to build awareness by providing relevant information that is compelling and authentic. Don’t sell me…engage me…educate me…enlighten me…then I am going to take action and call or reply to the idea of working together. Lastly, I don’t believe email marketing is dying (look at ExactTarget’s growth YOY the past few years), but rather shifting…just like newspaper, magazines, etc.
I guess the question is what do you measure to determine what is the best day to send out a marketing email. I don’t have a large sample to go by but I have sent marketing emails out every day of the week and did not see much difference in open rates for any of the days. So my conclusion was that if you go by open rates then it doesn’t really matter what day you send the email out.
After I did that little test I decided then that the most important thing was to focus on the title and content of the message so that they would want to read your email when they received it
I’d recommend stepping back and looking at this from the consumer vantage point. We’re all consumers, part of an audience. When do you most often feel like opening and reading email? Clicking through? Thinking of purchases?
Weekends aren’t ideal; your email is likely to get buried underneath the mass of email that comes in Sunday/Monday morning. If you send Monday, wait until everyone clears out their inboxes from the weekend overload.
– Alicia
@leximaven
Jules:
I guess I should say it’s dying in its current form. You only need to look at the success of Variable Data Printing (even if the printing is electronic) and see that email has horrible
Learn more: http://www.tcw.vdpcomplete.com/
This is where my clients are moving. You can’t deliver the right information, to the right people, in the right format, at the right time, in the right language with an email blast that isn’t attached to intelligent content that leverages XML and component content management. Doing so enables true personalization. Marketers who aren’t doing this today will be soon (especially those at big firms with big budgets) once shareholders and investors realize that they shouldn’t invest in organizations that treat every project as some kind of one-off college marketing project.
This isn’t even a secret. Here’s a white paper from The Rockley Group from years ago that explains how it should work. Today, my clients are doing it (not all of them, but the smart ones are).
Read: Managing Marketing Content: A Unified Strategy
http://www.rockley.com/articles/The%20Rockley%20Group%20-%20Managing%20Marketing%20Content.pdf
But, we are in agreement. Don’t sell me. Engage me. Someone please engage me. LOL
Scott
Historically, Tues-Thurs. have proven to be when most email are delivered because holiday days, summer hours and busy weekend schedules put a dent in performance of emails sent on Fri-Mon. However this has scared many marketers away from mailing on non-peak days, leading to three days of crowded inboxes.
Some try to send late at night so as to be at the top of the inbox the following morning, but this can backfire as many people simply delete non-work related emails as soon as they begin their day so they can focus only on the messages they need to sort through.
If email performance slip, it might be worth sending a portion of your list on a non-peak day to see the results. As some of the other comments note they have not seen much difference … so it may be an issue of industry etc. Also arriving as one of a few unread messages in an inbox on a Mon. might help your message stand out more than arriving with the many the following morning.
Another strategy might be to schedule your deployments at off times rather than the top and bottom of the hour favoured by many.
No such thing as a best day – Its specific to each marketer based on the data they have, content and type of email (e.g. sales or newsletter) of the email, audience and many other factors.
Testing is the only way to find out what day is best for you, and even then it can change from one week to the next – There may be some days over a period of time where you can see emails have performed better on certain days, but this can change on a weekly basis – There really is no such thing as a generic best day!
I can’t believe this thread has gone on so long and people are still suggesting that one day is better than another…..
There is no best day to send email…
The most important factors when doing email marketing are not what day to send it or even what the subject line says.. these two elements will make no difference to whether a contact actions your email.
The most important factors are the relevent targeting of your customers by segmenting your database, keeping your email marketing consistent and giving your customers something extra.
You can achieve this, as Scott suggests, using new ways to profile your customers, knowing more about them and making the email worth looking at.
For example, would it matter what day of the week it was if you’re sending someone a free gift on their birthday?
When testing, do you test to split lists? How many splits can you make with your database? I presume you are sending only to opt in lists or you would be spamming ( a pox on it). What is a minimum list you believe returns reliable test results?
Suggesting that people test, test, test, is like throwing someone in the water and saying, “swim, swim, swim.” Or so it seems to me.
Without some testing standard, you are as likely as not to get and use bad data
My suggestion would be do the opposite to what everyone else is doing. You are all saying avoid Mondays and Fridays well I believe the smart thing to do would be the complete opposite. Why? Because everyone is doing the same Tues/Thurs and guess what. Your target market is getting saturated with emails on those days and the likelihood of them even getting even opened his unlikely. Whereby if you target the days that everyone else is avoiding, then your email will stand out in their box and it will get opened. I have a video email strategy that gets me between 50-60% open every week with a click through of 16-25% when the average is 30% open and 3-5% click through. So it is working for me!
@John. Nice Blog Post. You actually summarize some of the interesting points offered by many of the folks here. As a Blog Post, I think it could evolve into a fully fledged case study, broken down by market. Then…all of us would just want to read the summary and find out the answer to the original question (Ha!).
I agree with most of the comments, especially with regards to testing and having different days based on demographic. We send out several different types of emails for example, newsletters, invitations, recruiting emails for employment, etc. An interesting point is that for our recruiting emails, they are typically targeted to new grads. After testing we found that our most successful day is in fact Friday afternoon. Our click-through rate went up by 20% by switching. So as many have said, test, test, test.
I am still amazed at this 1999 thinking. People are not demographics they are individuals. Social media and content management is about delivering the right information to the right people at the right time in the right language and format on the device the consumer chooses to utilize. Ugh!
All Latinos do not use their cell phones the same way (are you kidding me?) nor do they respond to emails on a certain day more than others, just like all gay men are not muscular gym-bunnies, nor are all [INSERT GROUP HERE] the same… This discussion is bordering on offensive, unprofessional and is so missing the bigger point.
You are missing opportunities by treating people like they are a group instead of individuals. Can we talk about that?
Social networks are groups of individuals not demographics
Does anyone have in depth particular experience with email marketing for the addiction treatment industry ?
For my newsletters, it’s all about who sends it and the title. I have tested all days. Sunday afternoons work remarkably well. People who are interested in what I have to say will open it and read it. Other days work almost as well. I have tested all days and times. From Tuesday afternoon to Thursday morning I experience a slightly higher immediate open rate, but others open my newsletter later on the weekend, so how much does it matter? If the title sounds interesting and they know the author/company, they will open it. Opening it is just a part of maintaining the business relationship. That’s just for my market. I cannot speak for other markets. Interesting thread!
I run several large press release distribution sites. We send 400 to 500 press releases a day for our clients and can track response rates to these releases.
Based on the data I’ve seen, the weekdays with the highest response rates for reading press releases are Monday Tuesday and Wednesday. The best time to distribute releases is between 8AM and 10AM EST.
This data is based on tens of thousands of releases published by our clients over the past 5 years.
Thanks Phil that data is really great to know. I don’t know if press releases vary in stats for open rates compared to newsletters but I know that some of my PR buddies will be happy with these details. Thanks for sharing. Happy Easter.
The Question is one we all struggle with and as may have stated requires a variety of answers. The type of prospect you are contacting and the purpose of the contact. Is it selling a product, a service, an invitation to an event and so on. What are the characteristics of the prospect; age, decision maker, gender and again so on. I fall into the camp that advocates testing, testing, testing and never stop because in our fast moving world Change is paramount. Our customer’s attitudes change constantly as a result of the continuous NOISE we are all subjected to. Observe your own responses in relation to your rapidly changing environment. I have become very jaded in my acceptance of email and very often consider it an encroachment. As a result I respond by wholesale deletions without looking at even the Subject Line. Who knows what I miss, but so what. I am sure that I will receive a duplicate soon and maybe I will stumble upon the message. I have a mail box that I only provide to people with whom I have a relationship with, and here I am more likely to read what I receive. My more public mail box can experience mass filing in the round file if you know what I mean. That’ s enough for my rant, I hope it sheds some light on the question. Take care.
Pam,
Distribution for us is publishing the release on our site, pushing it to Google News and social media sites as well. Most releases are also picked up by Google search within 6-10 minutes of being published on our system and the other search engines are usually not far behind.
With this type of marketing people find our clients releases, because they are looking for the content they offer.
So we really don’t have an “open” rate. what we do have is the number of times each release is viewed and over what period. From that info I can see that blocks of releases that are published in the mornings and on weekdays get more viewers than releases published later in the day or on weekends.
I recently wrote a white paper about this exact topic (the best day and time to send your email marketing for improving open rates and click throughs). This is a link to an article that summarises the whitepaper on our blog: http://www.marketinggum.com/the-best-day-and-time-to-send-your-email-marketing/
Good article! One way to gauge your potential customer is to look into your web traffic, see who is looking at you and when they typically do. Could end up landing on any day of the week, but will provide a great view into when customers want to see what you have!
Very useful comments i do appreciate. In Argentina and south america in general, the culture of email marketing is completly different than in other regions. Ive been tested the importance of good contacts and carefully analysis of each group and also each company and individuals. Its not good to try yo approach more quantity of leads but quality! Quality versus quantity is working for my business. Thanks for sharing.