From your experience what are the best times to distribute email marketing campaigns?
President at ProNetworkMedia
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By Jennifer Manocchio
The answer to this question is not black and white. While there are studies conducted on the best day and time to send business-to-business and consumer emails, the answer really depends on your subscriber base. For example, if you are sending an email to a business audience, sending the email on weekends might produce a low open rate. However, if you are targeting consumers, this might be an effective time to distribute your message.
Consider the results from our agency e-newletter (InSites). We distribute InSites weekly to our client and prospect database that features top marketing stories. While we avoid distributing on Monday or Friday, it doesn’t seem to matter what day we distribute the email during the week. We have tested different days and haven’t seen a change in open rate, which remains in the 26-31% range. What this tells us is we have a following that reads the e-newsletter on a regular basis no matter the day of the week. We attribute the fluctuation in open rates to the subject lines and people being out of the office.
On the consumer side, we recently started an e-marketing campaign for a retailer in the healthcare industry. We typically distribute the emails on a Tuesday or Wednesday because the client’s web site traffic tends to spike on Monday and drop off throughout the week. Distributing it on a Tuesday or Wednesday helps increase the web site traffic when it typically is down. Since this is only our third distribution to the database, it is hard to say whether day and time are affecting open rates. However, to our surprise, consumers continue to open the email weeks or even a month after the distribution. This tells us some of the contacts on the list don’t check their personal emails very often and the day and time of distribution don’t really affect this group.
The most effective way to determine when to distribute email is to test the days and times that you distribute email and determine when is most effective based on the open and click through rates. However, you need to take more into consideration than just the distribution day and time. The relationship you have with your subscribers, the from line and the subject line can also affect your open rates.
Want to know more about email marketing best practices, contact me at jennifer at sweeneypr.com or 910.772.1688.
