Is there a better time or day of the week to send our eNewsletter?
Perhaps one of the most common questions asked in email marketing is: When should we send our eNewsletter or email promotion? The answer: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (in no particular order) are generally considered to be the best days to send an email campaign, according to the Direct Marketing Association. And mid-morning or right after lunch — 10 a.m. or 1 p.m. — are the best times to have an email arrive.
Keep in mind that roughly, 62 percent of emails are opened between Tuesday and Thursday. About 80 percent are opened between 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. (PST), with more than a third of all openings happening within the first three hours of distribution.
Why Some Days Are Better Than Others
When you consider the other days of the week, it's obvious why Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the best choices for sending out eNewsletters. On Monday, your recipients are recovering from the weekend and won't be in a business mode yet. They may be catching up on a number of things on this day and generally won't have the time for or interest in reading an eNewsletter.
On Friday, subscribers are busy wrapping up projects before the weekend. Besides, if they started reading your eNewsletter on that day, it would probably get pushed aside or forgotten over the weekend. And on Saturday and Sunday, business audiences are generally out of the office.
The Importance of Timing
Timing is a key factor in email campaigns. You need to anticipate the behavior of your audience and send your eNewsletter at a time when they'll be most receptive. For example, it's important to ensure your eNewsletter isn't just sitting stagnate in your recipient's in-box first thing in the morning. The reason is simple. People tend to have a morning ritual of "cleaning" their in-box from any spam that arrived overnight. You don't want them to see your message when they're in a deleting frenzy and searching for items to discard.
Plus, there's the "spam" factor to consider. A lot of spam is sent during the middle of the night. And if you send your eNewsletter very early in the morning, it may get mistaken for and deleted with the spam that overcrowds your recipients' in-boxes.
Instead, you want your message to pop up while subscribers are in the middle of their workday. This increases the chances they'll stop and take some time to read your eNewsletter.
Plan Ahead For Best Results
When it comes to sending eNewsletters, consistency is just as important as the time of day or day of the week. You should deliver your newsletter at the same time, so you can "train" recipients to anticipate receiving it. You want subscribers to be able to set their watches by your email sends.
Still not certain what the optimum send time is for your email newsletter? You can always test different days of the week and time periods. Just make sure you test against a control group and that you measure not only open rates, but click-through percentages and Web site actions such as transactions and downloads.
The bottom line is: It's important to plan a head, so you can send out your eNewsletter when recipients are most likely to react. Emailing during prime time will result in the best open, click-through and other response rates.