Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The Best Time To Send Your Newsletter

Email icon image from Bobby Owsinski's Music 3.0 blog
Just like there’s a best day to send your newsletter, there’s also a definite science behind the time of day to send your emails. It’s been studied extensively, most notably by Dan Zarrella and Pure360. In this excerpt from The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media, we'll look at all the time periods in the day and evaluate email success in each. Remember that all times are Eastern Standard Time.
  • Most opens occur between 5AM and 7AM. Most people check their email first thing in the morning even before they leave for work. Remember that open rates are as much as 53% higher in the mornings.
  • 7AM to 10AM: The second most prevalent email opening time is at the beginning of the working day.
  • 10AM to Noon: Consumers are not opening marketing emails, choosing instead to focus on work.
  • Noon to 2PM: Consumers are unlikely to open emails during their lunch break, choosing instead to spend their time on news and magazine alerts.
  • 2PM to 3PM: Right after lunch consumers remain focused on work, responding mostly to email offers related to financial services.
  • 3PM to 5PM: Consumers start thinking about their personal situation and as a result, more emails relating to property and financial services are opened during this time period than any other.
  • 5PM to 7PM: Consumers tend to open business to business (B2B) promotions during this period, but also open more holiday-type promotions during this period than any other.
  • 7PM to 10PM: The time period when recipients are most likely to respond to consumer promotions is when they get off work.
  • 10PM to 6AM: This is an email dead zone, as most sent during this period are ineffective.
Remember that these are trends and might not apply to your particular audience. The best way to proceed is to use these timings as a starting point, then experiment to see if another time works better. It's easy enough to schedule blog posts or emails to do so, just make sure that you have enough of a sample size before you make any ironclad decisions on exactly what's working.


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