Are you an email marketing expert and wondering if time matters in email marketing? The answer is yes. There is no doubt in this that time happens to be the most important factor in email marketing.
Imagine how much time your team takes to craft an email for your potential customers and it lands up in the spam folder. All your efforts will go in vain because of one wrong thing which is time. Not only this, crafting an email also needs personalized content.
Consequently, knowing which time to send an email and which not is crucial and a must-know for every email marketer. Numerous email marketers tend to have years of experience but when it comes to knowing the ideal time, they are blank.
Timing may not be that significant in other domains but it is of great significance in emails as it is what gets you subscribers and conversions. No worries if you also lack knowledge about the ideal time as this post is dedicated to the same.
Relevance of Time in Email Marketing
The research conducted on emails reveals that these tend to have the best results within the first hour after delivery. Most of the emails are sent from 6 am to noon whereas the least number of emails tend to be at midnight.
But do you know at what time, the emails record the most click-throughs? It is around 8 a.m, 9 a.m, 3 p.m., and 8 p.m. Consequently, most email marketers are confused and have no idea about when to send an email.
Best Time to Send Emails
Most email marketers are curious to know the perfect time to send emails so that they can get the maximum conversions. The research conducted on this reveals that it is best to catch up on your clients early in the morning.
As far as consumer promotion emails are concerned, they tend to get the best results when sent between 7 pm and 10 pm. Like this, there is a separate time for sending an email specific to the industry. For instance, emails related to property should be sent between 3 pm and 5 pm.
In addition to this, weekends happen to be the time when email bounce rates tend to be the highest. It is not only the weekends but the email bounce rates are also higher on the early mornings of the weekdays.
Factors to Consider Before Sending an Email
By now, you have come to know about the best time to send the emails via research and findings. But this is not the same and varies greatly depending on the businesses and target audience.
Consequently, we have compiled a list of factors to consider before sending an email.
Audience Behavior and Demographics
The first factor that matters the most in email marketing is audience behavior and demographics. Before sending an email, having the know-how of your audience and its demographics is a must for the email marketer.
The time to send an email to one category of the audience may not be the same for another category of the audience. It varies greatly from the audience to audience. Consequently, email marketers need to observe and take the proper time to study the behavior patterns of the audiences in particular geographical conditions.
For instance, sending emails on weekends is not a wise idea as the open rates will be quite less. It is better to send emails on normal weekdays.
Your Products and Services
Another critical factor that matters while sending emails is the products and services you are offering. If your products and services are for the B2B industry, then Tuesday works wonders for sending emails. But if you are in some other industry such as the entertainment industry, then Friday or the weekend is the best option.
User Experience
The next major factor comes from the user experience. Here, the user experience means how the user feels about reading your mail. It will determine if your further emails will be opened in the future or not.
Consequently, make sure to design the email in a user-friendly manner with good graphics and understandable language. Also, see if your emails are mobile-friendly or not as most users tend to view the emails on their mobiles.
Seasonal Changes
Not many email marketers and businesses know this but seasonal changes also tend to affect the open rates of your emails. Usually, email marketers tend to choose the weekdays for sending emails and not the weekends. But if you figure out that it is monsoon or snow, then you can send the emails on weekends and try your way out.
It is because people will be stuck in their homes with no plans for hanging out on the weekends, which increases your chances of getting the email noticed.
Subject Lines
The most important part of an email is the subject lines. Usually, marketers consider this trivial and not so important but this is something that can boost the open rates and conversions if used well.
The subject lines are the first thing that your customer notices about your email when it lands in their inbox. Sometimes, people decide if they should open an email or not by merely looking at the subject lines.
Consequently, make sure to come up with some impressive subject lines to attract people’s attention right at the outset.
Frequency of Emails
How many times you send emails to your potential customers also determines your success rate. By this, we mean the frequency of your emails. Too many emails can irritate the readers and they might get frustrated.
Not only this, but this also fails to create an impact and does not bring desired results. Consequently, pay heed to the frequency of your emails and schedule your emails in a way that works out in your favor.
Usually, sending an email once a week is regarded as best. But you can make use of the trial and error method to figure out the best frequency for you.
A/B Testing
By doing in-depth research on ideal time slots for sending emails, you may come to know this but this does not remain the same and tends to change at regular intervals. But no worries as A/B testing is the best alternative to deal with this.
You can schedule your A/B testing once in a while to figure out what is working best for you and when is the right time to send emails to your target audience.
To get started with A/B testing, send one email at a time and choose a different time slot for sending another email. Compare the metrics of both to find out which time slot is best and has higher open rates.
Ways to Monitor the Performance of Your Emails
Once the email marketers get to know the ideal time to send an email, the next question they have is- How to monitor the performance of your emails? Consequently, here are some metrics to consider while tracking the performance of your emails.
Click-Through-Rate
It refers to the number of times a person opens your email or an image in the email. The number of click-through emails will always be smaller than the total number of emails opened. It is because not everyone will read your mail and will simply abandon it without engaging with it.
Many email marketers have a click through rate as their primary goal for the email marketing campaign.
Open Rate
Open rate is another metric used to measure the success of your email marketing. It refers to the percentage obtained from the number of subscribers who opened your email marketing campaign.
Usually, emails tend to have higher open rates when they are short and have effective subject lines. Besides this, the emails should be optimized.
Wrapping Up
By now, you must have got a fair understanding of the significance of time in email marketing and also how to measure the success of your email marketing campaign. Rest, it depends on your target audience and the products you are offering.