Gabriel Nechita
I have good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?
OK, let’s assume you want the bad news first.
After reading a bunch of articles on the matter of scheduling
email deliveries and checking out stats from all the big email
providers like Aweber, Mailchimp, Get Response and other
companies we integrated PadiAct with, I reached a STRONG CONCLUSION.
There’s no specific formula for the perfect delivery time
of email campaigns.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that there are a few patterns emerging
from billions of emails sent, and we will talk about them
in order to help you find the best time to deliver your emails.
Know this from the start: All email lists are unique!
Even though you can benchmark your list with almost anyone
in your industry, that doesn’t mean the same rules apply
to your audience.
Your list is unique, because your subscribers are unique,
and that means you have to listen to your audience are
silently saying through the measurement of important
email metrics.
Email Scheduling Patterns:
As I said earlier, I learned that there are a few patterns
that can help you decide when is the best time to reach out
to your list.
1. Early mornings:
A few email marketers learned that sending their emails
early in the morning work best for them.
Why?
There are 2 main reasons to this:
The nature of their subscribers’ jobs which allows or requires
early morning email checking
The importance of emails:
You want your emails to rank higher in your subscribers’ inbox
So if your subscribers are busy working people that usually have
time only in the morning or your emails are so important that
are like pancakes in the morning, then you should test if early
morning deliveries work for your list.
2. Lunch time:
Some ventures went on a “lunch time” strategy.
It’s very obvious the reasoning behind this strategy. You are
looking to capitalize on the spare time that your audience has.
So if your offer is important enough that people don’t leave
for lunch because they may get a great deal for you, you should
test lunch time as a choice for your scheduled campaign.
3. Weekdays:
With different clients I tested different weekdays to set up
as the “official newsletter day”.
If your audience is catching up with work on Monday, maybe
Tuesday of Wednesday is a better choice for you.
If you are managing an e-commerce shop and you want people
to cruise your website to acquire new gadgets and electronics,
then you better send that email in Thursday.
Nothing is set in stone.
That’s why you have to test different weekdays. And you can
do that with the same list.
Split your email list in 2 groups to test 2 different delivering
days. To group A you will send your newsletter, let’s say
Wednesday and to group B, Thursday.
Repeat this test next week. What were your results?
4. Weekends:
Some marketers send emails on Friday afternoons because they
want their subscribers to schedule their weekends after their
offers.
Some marketers send their emails on a Sunday morning. Why?
Because their lists consist of ambitious and busy entrepreneurs
that use Sunday as a planning day for the upcoming week.
So if your audience is a busy one or your offers is important
enough to schedule a weekend around it, maybe it’s proper
to send your emails throughout the weekends.
5. Several times a day or as news breaks out:
This delivery schedule is preferred by news sites and coupons
dealers.
I think it’s kind of obvious.
You want your emails to match your offer, so in order to strive,
you match your email frequency with your content frequency.
Without a doubt some emails will be completely ignored, that’s
why you should offer alternatives like: daily summaries, weekly
newsletter or preference based subscription, when users can
select what kind of content should be delivered to their emails.
Final thoughts:
Testing is imperative. You cannot determine the best time-frame
for deliveries if you don’t have the patience to test different
schedules.
Every niche and every campaign is different. So you can adapt
your schedule according to the purpose, or end goal of your
campaign.
Delivering emails is not only a service to you, because you
get better open rates, it’s also a great services to your
audience because they get their emails exactly when they’re
available to read them, or are in need of your content.
********************************
About the Author: Gabriel Nechita is a freelancer.
Read his posts on Google blog by clicking here.
Sincerely,
Irena Whitfield's Latest Articles
Organizational, Legal, General publishing rules, Ad, Article
Guidelines, FTC Rules, Publisher Information and related
documents, Basic versions and links: