The Right Time to Email for best Engagement

Is there a right time for everything – Harry loves Sally and he is popping the question tonight followed by a congratulations surprise party.  He’s invited all their friends and relatives to the party via email with invitations that he sent on a Saturday afternoon 2 weeks before.  

Harry didn't want his bride to accidentally find the invitations in his email, he used a different email account, one that most of his friends and relatives were unfamiliar with. His subject line just said Surprise. He had planned to send a reminder to everyone a week before the party and another reminder yesterday. Harry is not using Dundee Email Services, therefore, Harry didn’t have a way to schedule the email reminders. AND he was so busy with planning he forgot to send them.

Harry can’t track his opens in one place, as you can with Dundee, Harry assumes everyone received the emailed invitations.  He did test his email to make sure it looked okay on his laptop, but he didn’t think of mobile opens. It turned out that the formatting was all wrong and unreadable for mobile devices. Had he used Dundee Internet not only would the formatting be correct; his RSVPs would have been sent out automatically with a “thank you for coming” and instruction on how to surprise the bride to be.

Lastly, most of the invitations were ignored or deleted. The majority of his email recipients weren’t home or spending time with their family on the weekend instead of reading emails.  Some didn’t recognize the sender, and to all recipients, the Subject line looked suspicious. 

The surprise of the party was the number of people that didn’t show up. There were way too much food and bottles of champagne. Harry wondered why most of their friends and family didn’t show. In spite of the results of Harry’s invitation exercise, he knows that email is the most effective and accepted way for communication. Just for the same reasons digital marketers know that email is an excellent marketing tool. Digital marketers also know for the best results email needs to be targeted, personalized and hopefully sent on a day and time the recipient will read it.

With a little research, you may discover the best day to send your email marketing message is Tuesday, Thursday and Wednesday respectively. Doesn’t that sound easy, just send out marketing campaigns on those three days.

However according to a study by "GetResponse" at least 77.85% of sent emails messages are never opened during those optimal days. This includes the emails where marketers ran a/b tests with different Subject Lines, Format, Colors, segments and so on, before they send out an entire email campaign.

With all that, even on the best sending day, there’s less than a 25% open rate across all industries. As stated, Tuesday is the best day of the week to send email, it historically has the highest open rates with more click-throughs and website visitation. Now that you know the best day to mail, in order, to reach that average open rate you also need to know the best time to send the mail, the actual time of day.

Time of day depends on where your list member lives - Center your timing on your audience. When creating a marketing campaign, always consider time zones, (Hopefully you collected demographic information from your list members. Dundee user-customizable Profile pages.) because list members in England may not receive your Thursday email until 3am on Friday. 

Use segments to break up the list into time zones and schedule the mailings ahead of time to go on time. What about the actual hour of the day?  Ideally you want your list members to open your message within the first hour of sending it. First and foremost it is essential, as a marketer, you understand your audience. If you know who they are, where they live and work, you can engage with them on a higher level. To reach this level of engagement use the tools your email service providers offer.

Such as:

1. Analytics - Look for patterns, and the time an email was opened, when there were clickthrough’s, and referrals

2. Surveys -Send a survey and ask for audience feedback. Include questions like “when do you open your email from us”, “how often do you want our email”, “what time of day do you prefer to receive our messages”.  Ask questions that will be useful to you.
3. Test – Use A/B testing to send at different times and dates. Note which has the most success as defined by you , such as opens, referrals, clickthroughs.

You may discover Monday is not an ideal day to mail, because it’s the beginning of a workweek. People are generally too busy to open nonwork-related messages. However you discovered, you can email early in the morning reaching the inbox at 6am on any given day. You find that the habits of most working people include checking email and social media accounts right along with their morning coffee before they go to work.

Some studies say 9am-11am is the ideal time.  Based on the number of work emails opened at that time. There’s some that support sending emails to reach the inbox by 2pm when most working people are ready for a mental break from work. When it comes right down to it there is not a perfect time to email, just guidelines. In Harry’s case he was doomed from the start using a new email address, an iffy Subject Line and not following up.  Sally said yes and she’s now an email marketer using Dundee Internet email services. 

Be like Sally, order today.