There’s a lot of factors that go into making an email campaign a successful one. One of those factors is timing. And while there’s a lot of data out there about when the best times to send out a message are, we’re really only going to focus on those briefly. Instead we’re going to focus more on the strategy of timing, because that’s what you really want to hear, right? Dropping a bunch of times of day on you is only helpful to a point.
To boot, we’re going to drop some social times on you as well, because integrating email and social media is all the rage these days. So much of a rage that we even wrote an eBook about it that you can download for absolutely free!
For freeeeeee!
Alright, moving on. Let’s hit it.
In The Middle
Turns out that in the middle of the week (Tuesday to Thursday) in the middle of the day (1-3 PM) is when people are most engaged with their inboxes. The worst days are Saturday and Sunday, probably because people are out buying their pumpkin-themed products on the weekend.
Pretty much our sentiments about all pumpkin everything.
Getting Social
The folks over at SumAll have a pretty amazing write-up for social media posting, and we highly recommend you take a look at it. But for those who can’t be bothered to click through, we’ve got you covered:
Putting The Puzzle Together
So now that you have this knowledge, it’s time to sit down and piece it all together, right?
Not right.
These aren’t really the pieces you need. The pieces you need you construct yourself. It turns out that human beings don’t really all fit nicely into one sort cookie cutter type mold. So that’s why getting to know your subscriber list is how you best solve for optimal sending times. So that’s why we …
Analyze
You have all the data at your finger tips. When are you getting the most opens? When are you getting the most click-to-opens? What type of email content is generating this data? Are you A/B testing? The more information you study about your subscribers, the better understanding you have on when best to email them.
Segment
After you’ve finished your homework, start separating your subscribers into lists. After all, just because a certain grouping of days and times works best for most of your list, that doesn’t mean you can’t target a different set of users at times that work best for them. That’s why email is so magical: The limitations presented with social media marketing don’t translate to email. With email, you can get your list so deeply segmented that you’ll never have to worry about doing blanket sends and hoping that your message hits most of its marks.
Send
Now that you’ve done all that, it’s time to hit send. And this is where social media comes into play also. Those times up there in that little graphic? Do any of those coincide with the send times you generated? Then that sounds like it’s the perfect time to deploy a one-two combo that’ll maximize your subscriber engagement.
Yeah, yeah. You shoryuken that email list, you maniac.
Also check out How Social Coupons Drive Email Remarketing Campaigns and A Marketer’s Guide To Social Media Images.