The Best Day To Send Small Business Email Newsletters
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Your email list could be the most valuable marketing asset your small business owns. Email marketing is one of the biggest contributors to online sales and is a great platform for relationship building with your audience.
There are a number of different elements to increase the open rate of your small business emails. We’ve discussed some of the more advanced tactics to increase your email marketing success including:
These tips are brilliant for creating a sleek email marketing strategy to drive visitors back to your site and increase interaction with your content. In addition to optimising who receives and how often they receive your emails, you can also optimise when to send your emails.
Optimising Your Sending Time
There have been numerous studies researching the best time and day to send your emails. One study of over one billion sent emails found 7% of all emails were opened between 2pm and 3pm and approximately 28% of all emails were opened between midday and 5pm. The study found very few emails were opened in the morning with only 12% opened between 8am and 12 noon.
The evening was far more productive than the morning with approximately 23.5% off the emails opened between 5pm and midnight. This study however only looked at when the emails were opened and did not identify when they were sent.
An Experian study on the other hand did look into the sending time. The research found the open rates for emails were higher when they were sent in the evening. Those sent between 8pm and midnight had an average unique open rate of 21.7%. It is generally considered this is because the number of emails received at this time is lower and therefore there is less competition.
The same study also found the late evening emails had a slightly higher than average revenue per email.
Which Day Of The Week To Send Your Small Business Email?
Sending your small business email on the right day is also important. It is generally considered Monday and Friday are not the best days for your email to be sent.
This is because Monday receivers are generally recovering from their weekends and are looking to get a head start on their week’s main tasks. Therefore, their focus is away from their inbox. Friday is seen as a bad option because your contacts are likely trying to finish off tasks for the weekend and don’t want to start something new.
Generally, people think that this leaves Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as the main options for sending emails. While these days do receive a higher amount of email traffic and generally 17-18% of emails are opened on these days – research would seem to suggest there is a better option.
Weekend Readers
Data from Harland Clarke suggests emails sent on a Wednesday have an average open rate of 15.6%. In contrast, an email sent on Saturday is likely to be opened by nearly a third of receivers.
Harland Clarke suggests the reason for this is competition. While the majority of emails are sent on a Wednesday (26.9%) only a small proportion are sent on Saturday (5.5%).
Testing When Your Best Send Time Is
However, the best time for your email marketing may be different and the only way to know for sure is to conduct a test. Try doing a split test and send half your list an email on one day and the half on another day. Do this for several weeks and then swap the poor performing day with another day. Repeat the process until you have a day which consistently performs well.
You can also do the same with the timing of your emails.
Take Action:
- Test when your email marketing campaigns should be sent.
- Let us know how your testing has gone in the comments.
Tagged in: email marketing, Email Newsletters, Email Strategy, Email Testing, Small Business