Marketing is not just about adding value to your customers, it also involves reaching out to the target masses at the right time, with the right service or product. What really matters when talking about ‘good marketing skills,’ is the combination of time and talent.
When it comes to email marketing campaigns or business promotion through newsletters, it is not just the optimum content and graphics that is important. The key to bringing maximum output from this tactic is the perfect timing.
As a business leader, it is important that you know the best time to send out your email marketing campaigns. If your emails go out at a wrong time, there are chances your success rates could plummet. Contrarily, scheduling it for the right time could have a huge impact on your campaign’s effectiveness and in turn your business’s growth.
There is a ton of data on the Internet about when to shoot email campaigns. But the fact is that all the effort really depends on trial and error. You will have to play around and experiment with different send times to define the perfect time to schedule emails for marketing. However, a little head-start is good to help you going. Here are three main pointers to consider while deciding to schedule emails for best marketing efforts.
- Pick your day
A MailChimp, “Send Time Optimization” algorithm used to gather information on the best time to send emails in local time zones reflects that the best day of the week to send emails is Thursday. However, when the studies from this algorithm were compared against Experian’s Benchmark report and HubSpot’s report, it was concluded that there was actually very little difference between any of the weekdays, from Monday to Friday. Sending out emails over the weekends was considered to be the least optimal day, with Sunday being the least preferred day to send emails.
Studies show that open rates for the weekdays, between Monday to Friday, were only 1.4% apart, which concluded that the day of the week really made very little or no difference in terms of open rates. However, open rates seemed to diminish as the week went on, with the weekends having the lowest open rates.
- Set your clock
In a study conducted by MailerMailer, it was concluded that scheduling emails during the early evening and early morning hours had more open rates, with open rates peaking at 12 AM. Contrarily, 12 PM was the worst time for open rates. Similarly, WordStream’s data showed 8-9AM, specifically on Thursdays, had the highest open rate and going back to the MailChimp study, the optimal send time surged at 10AM in the recipients’ own time zones.
The studies reflect that as a general rule, companies scheduling emails during normal business hours, between 8AM-5PM, with the peak time being 10 AM, have more chances of open rates and therefore can carry out more effective email marketing campaigns.
If your business demands that you schedule emails during peak business hours, easy scheduling and precise time tracking tools can be the best option for you.
- Know your audience
To have successful email marketing campaigns, it is important that you understand your demographics. They’re your existing and potential customers and all your business success will depend on their habits and lifestyle.
Even though studies reflect perfect rules of days and date for scheduling emails, the single most important thing you can do for email marketing successunderstands how demographics change the stereotype notions about best and perfect timings. For instance, if your audience is a tech-savvy young mass using more phones than a desktop, you might probably want to ignore the great tip about sending emails during business hours. In this case, sending emails during the night can give you more open rates. Similarly, if you are in the entertainment industry, Fridays could be a great day to send emails to people hunting options about how to spend their weekends.
It is important that you consider your customers’ demographics and customize email send times depending on their time zones, lifestyle, habits and preferences.
So, as a company leader, are you struggling to know what is the best time for scheduling emails for marketing, the news is that “there’s no size fits all” answer to this question. However, fortunately, it is actually very simple to get an answer that is company specific. A little research about various time-zones, public holidays and customer engagement levels can give you a lot of insight as to when you should schedule your emails. For companies looking to carry out safe and effective email marketing campaigns, the mid-day, mid-week strategy is a good head-start. But for those wanting to have a competitive edge, at the very best time for optimal open and click rates, the answer lies in – TESTING!