What time should you send your email marketing campaigns?
A bit like social media, the success of your email campaigns is in part due when they land in someone’s inbox. The trick is to have it arrive at a time when it’s relevant to them and they’re checking emails, and before their inbox fills up with other mail that could take their attention away from yours. All that depends on:
Who your audience is and their lifestyle
Whether you’re selling business to business, business to entrepreneur, or business to consumer
What sort of things you’re emailing about?
What works with your audience’s lifestyle and behaviour habits?
It’s not rocket science but sit down and have a proper think about your audience, what they do and when they do it, and what points in their day they are a) likely to be on their phone and b) have some undistracted time. For example:
Mums
If your audience is mums, there’s little point emailing them at any time between 2.45 and 8pm because they’re busy with school runs, tea time, bath time and bed time. There are too many distractions and your email is not a priority.
But 9pm when the kids are in bed, they’re sitting on the sofa, perhaps flicking on their phones, might be a good time depending on what you’re emailing about. Especially if it relates to family activities, bigger purchases or getting dibs for an evening out on the family calendar, because there’s a fair chance their other half is sitting next to them for discussion.
Equally, 9.15am when they kids have been dropped off at nursery or school can be a good time too for more personal related topics which don’t involve their family such as female clothing.
Professionals
Professionals, and particularly commuters have time to kill on the train, so 7.45-8.45am and 5.45-6.45pm can be ideal times. They’re probably bored so probably on their mobile phones (so make sure your campaigns are short and sweet and look great on mobile devices).
Business to business employees
Office based employees depends on their seniority. If they’re admin staff there’s a fair chance they’re not thinking about work until they arrive in the office, sign in, have a coffee and a chat with colleagues. So 9-9.15am can work well. For more senior decision makers - aim for those commuting times like the professionals.
Entrepreneurs
Are entrepreneurs ever really “off work”? Probably not. But if they run a cafe, email outside of breakfast or lunch time. If they’re a personal trainer, pick before lunch or late afternoon before the after work peaks.
Weekdays vs weekends
When do people make plans? When do they do their shopping? When do they exercise? When are they wondering what to eat? When are they about to do DIY? When are they wondering what to do with the kids or their friends? I have an ecommerce site and most of my orders come in on Sundays and late evenings, so that’s a peak time for me to send email campaigns too.
Check your Facebook page insights
For anything other than business to business, I think the insights on your business Facebook page are a great indicator to see when your audience is online. The way I see it is if they’re on Facebook, they have their phone in their hand, which will notify them of a new email. Just bear in mind that Facebook’s default is the Pacific Time Zone, so 2pm PT equates to 9pm UK time etc.
This screenshot is of my Facebook page’s insights (check the Post tab on the left hand menu on your insight’s page), and show’s when my followers are on Facebook. NB the default is US Pacific Time so you’ll need to translate that into your own timezone.
Send your campaign 5-10 minutes BEFORE that optimal time
In peak times of day, and if you have a big audience, there’s a strong possibility that there will be a bit of a delay between you clicking on “send” and it actually being delivered. So if the timing is crucial, allow 5-10 minutes for it to go out.
Test, review and try again
Once you’ve had a think and planned your campaign timing, go for it. But then be sure to look at your Mailchimp reports to see if and when people opened your emails, and also if and when they clicked on any links or buttons in them. Sometimes you may find that there’s an initial open spike, but a later click spike as people go back to it. So perhaps time the next campaign to coincide with the click spike if that’s when they have more time.
If you have a paid-for Mailchimp account you’ll also have access to their scheduling and A/B Testing tools, which can help you experiment further.
Keep an eye on your reports and over time you’ll get to build an increasingly clear understanding of your audience and their behaviour, what works and what doesn’t.
Can your website cope with a flood of traffic?
It sounds obvious, but before you click on send, if you’re directing people to your website in the campaign, make sure that your website is working and isn’t undergoing maintenance or updates.
Also, on the off chance that you have a huge audience and an amazingly successful campaign, make sure that your website can cope with the level of traffic it could generate. Mailchimp offers a premium (paid for) feature that allows you to send your campaign in batches to spread out traffic.
And finally…
If you have any questions or need help with your business or Mailchimp strategy, I offer a free, no-strings-attached-whatsoever 15 minute discovery call. Just get in touch via my contact page.
Claire