What does your email inbox look like right now?
Is it crowded? Is it filled with a mixture of business and junk? Could you get through it and get down to inbox zero in a few minutes or would it take the better part of the time left between now and Christmas to do so?
I’m not judging.
I simply want to point out something. If you are at inbox zero, or you keep a very neat inbox, dealing with everything as it comes in, an email from a salesperson can be easily opened. You can quickly see if it’s something you are interested in. And then act accordingly.
However, if your email inbox more closely resembles an airport after a blizzard hits with all kinds of zaniness, even if that sales opportunity is something you’re interested in, it’s likely you won’t react. You simply don’t have the time. You most likely will delete it just to get it out of your email inbox. When you do so, you may even be secretly hoping they reach out to you again at a time when you are more able to give it the time it requires.
For some of us, the condition of our email inbox varies a lot with time and day. For instance, if you work in the Pacific Time Zone but a lot of your peers and vendors are in the Eastern Time Zone, you may come in every morning to many emails because they’ve already been working for several hours. On the other hand, the number of emails you receive may dip at about 2 p.m. (PT) because your eastern stakeholders are shutting down.
If a salesperson sends you an e-mail first thing in the morning among all the other craziness in your inbox, you’re more likely to ignore them and their request. But if they send something to you later, at a time where things have significantly quieted down for you, you’re likely to pay more attention to them.
Email Timing Affects Open-rate
That’s why email timing is so critical. the time and day you send your email can be the difference in someone entertaining your request or information and someone deleting it without even opening it.
The difficult thing about email sends is that I can’t tell you when to do it. I can’t give you a magic time in which all of your potential leads will open your email.
But what you can do is try a few different times and days to figure out what your specific audience is most likely to interact with. Here’s why it’s so difficult to advise someone on the perfect time to send an email.
Do you know people who do their business planning for the week on Sunday night as they sit in the chair in front of the television? You probably do. This would be an excellent time to reach them because things are quieter but they’re also still in a business mode and thinking about business.
On the other hand, some people disconnect completely on the weekends and sending them something on Sunday night– even if that is the quieter time– won’t make a big impression on them because they won’t see it until Monday morning.
So how can you ensure that you maximize your email open rate? Try these tips.
7 Tips for Improving Your Open Rate by Pinpointing the Ideal Email Send Time
The only way to know whether your person will response to Sunday night sends or not is to try some. But getting social media times down and finding the window where your ideal audience is online, but not that busy, is like target practice. If you’re not on the mark, you must keep trying until you get closer to where you want to be. Get to the bullseye of reaching your ideal customer with these ideas.
1. Email Timing Trumps the Sender’s Name and Subject Line
Most marketers say that your sender’s name and the email subject line drive opens. That is true secondarily. But the first thing that comes into play before they can make that decision based on the subject line or the from field is that they have to see your email. If you send it during a very busy time they’re less likely to see it.
Assuming they do see it and they look to your subject line and your from field–assuming they’re busy and they don’t know you–they’ll be less likely to open it. If they do know you, as in the case of a current customer, they will still likely make an email-open decision based on how much time they have and how busy they are.
So you want to find a way to find out when they’re not that busy but still interested in business.
2. Consider late evenings.
As mentioned previously, the ideal timing for sending an email depends on your audience. What works for one group may not work for others. For instance, I received an email from Kim Garst, a marketing Guru who helps small businesses and entrepreneurs. She sent the email at around 11 p.m. with the subject line “<First name> are you still up?” and my first name inserted in a mail merge field (of course).
Now, I knew this was not a personal message from Kim. I’m on her newsletter list but for a moment it felt like she and I were both hard at it.
The email was personalized with my name in the subject line and it was sent at a time where a lot of small business owners and entrepreneurs are winding down but still in business mode. After all, few of us never completely shut down.
It was a great time to grab my attention. If she had sent something at 9 a.m. instead, waiting until the next morning, it would not have had as large an impact on me.
3. Personalize the Subject Line
If you’re going to send something at an off time because there’s more of a chance for someone to look at it, you want to make sure you’re using a strong subject line. Especially since that’s one of the major things people look at when deciding if they’re going to open it or not.
Getting back to the Kim Garst example, she used my first name, which got my attention. Plus, it was sent at a slow time for receiving emails. It felt very personal.
You should always personalize your subject lines for your audience. But that doesn’t mean you need to address them by first name. That might not get their attention if they’re used to it. Play around with a few things and try different kinds of personalization. You may find one type works better than another for your audience.
4. Send on the Weekends
This is another tactic that can be incredibly successful by helping you cut through some of the noise. But that success is predicated on whether your ideal audience unplugs on the weekends. Some people absolutely refuse to do any business at those times, while others use the weekends to catch up.
Try a few different days to see what they do for your open rates. Christopher Penn, marketing superhero and author, sends out his newsletters on Sunday evening. That may work for you too if your audience stays plugged in and focussed on business during the weekend.
5. Avoid Mondays
Unless your ideal audience is very different than the average person, you want to avoid a Monday send. There are several reasons for this such as:
- People are playing catch-up on Mondays and don’t have time.
- Everyone saves their sends for Monday. They want to start off the week reaching out. So Mondays are a naturally heavy email day. Plus, people are more likely to get internal requests on a Monday when everyone is back in the office.
- People just aren’t in the mood. They’re thinking about their weekend, they’re tired from the past weekend, or they’re just not excited about being in the office.
If your ideal recipient isn’t in an office setting, like a stay-at-home mom, Monday’s may be an ideal time to reach them because the kids are back in school.
As we mentioned before, there is no ideal send time for every business. It’s something you need to figure out through trial and error. But generally speaking, Mondays are a very busy time.
You may find as you’re running these tests that Friday afternoons are also not a very effective time to reach your audience. On the other hand, you may find them to be very lucrative if your audience is sitting in their office with nothing to do waiting for the hands of the clock to reach 5.
It all depends.
6. Repeat Important Messages in Different Ways
Don’t send an important email once and assume they will act on it. If it’s your newsletter, yes send it a single time. But if it’s an invitation for an event, send it several times. Send it:
- a few weeks out
- a week out
- a few days out
- the day of
People lose invitations or misplace contact information. They may assume the event is sold out and then when they receive an email from you they will be pleasantly surprised that there’s still room. Or they may have simply forgotten to register earlier and knowing that they can still do so will likely help you sell more tickets (or get more attendees), even if they are at the last minute.
7. Personalize Send Times
Finally, you can use a scheduler to schedule the same email to hit at different times. Most email or marketing software allows you to designate specific “if-then” or sorting scenarios for sending.
They also adjust for local time. For instance, you can set it to be delivered at the same time across whatever time zone they’re in ( like East Coast would receive it at 8 a.m., while West Coast would receive it at 5 a.m. their time) or you can stagger the send so that everything is delivered at 8 a.m. in the time zone they’re in.
Email marketing is only a component of a complete marketing strategy. Don’t forget your offline promotions. Contact us today for all of your promotional marketing needs.
Leave a Reply