Marketing departments fret at this issue each every day. We want
to announce our products and services to the world and picking the right
channel is hard enough, but now we have to know when our consumers want to view
our messages. When it comes to email marketing, few have the answer.
Talking to many in the industry, most marketing pros will
say to send the email early in the morning before people’s inboxes start to
pile up. Others say send it during the lunch hour because people are more
relaxed. Some, and not many by my experience, say to send it later at night. In
fact, in a recent study by ExperianCheetahMail, emails sent late at night performed better than any other time
of the day.
Emails sent between 8 P.M. and 12 P.M. accumulated higher
open rates, clickthrough rates, sales leads and sales.
Looking at the image above, the number that should jump out
at you is the revenue per email. For the late night emails, that average jumped
to $0.48 per email. That is more than double compared to any other time of the
day.
Despite numerous studies such as this being released, we
still have a long way to go before companies start adopting the tactic. The
first issue that comes to mind is that most of us are not working past 8 P.M.
With the rise of real-time marketing and immediate customer service, consumers
want everything right away. If they have any questions about the email, those
will all have to wait until the morning.
The second problem I see is that if all f us adopt this
strategy, sending emails at night will become the norm. More people are opening
and clicking through these night emails because first, we all have smartphones,
but second, because it’s not common. Everyone likes being part of something
different, but when more brands start sending emails at night, it will become
the norm and people will lose interest.
Brands need to send emails when their fans want them. The
best way to find that perfect time of the day is to ask them. Target your emails.
Segment your lists. Always, listen to your fans. Do all this and your email
marketing program will do just fine.
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