The best of times

The best of times

The best of times

With apologies to Dickens, the best of times can be the worst of times.

The problem is that everyone in email marketing is trying to find the best time to send the email and there is much advice on what this is.

Who enjoys the sight of a full inbox of a Monday morning before the meeting with all the departmental heads? Best to avoid that slot we are told and for good reason. It is accepted that Tuesdays and Thursdays are best for B2B and that three o'clock on a Friday might not be the optimum time to send an email that requires a bit of concentration or some sort of effort on the recipient's behalf.

That is all well and good but there is an inherent problem with the much publicised best time advice: everyone knows about it. So these time slots can become crowded. If everyone engaged in email marketing accepts the same advice then your emails might well be surrounded by your competitors' when the recipient clicks Check Mail.

This might not be entirely negative. If your prices are competitive and are known to be so you might like to emphasise this by way of direct comparison. This could encourage your customers to opt out of your competitors' email lists. Or perhaps others engaged in email marketing will have to go for non optimum time slots. A victory for you in more ways than one.

If you are offering something new, or an opportunity that requires a bit of thought, then you might feel that an unpopulated inbox is an essential. So what is the best time?

All guidance on email marketing is just that: guidance. Away from the legal aspects there are very few circumstances where one can be prescriptive and even then it can be useful to give it a bit of original thought. So be adventuresome and take informed risks although remember that it is your email lists that are under threat.

To know which is the best, or at the very least better, time to transmit you must experiment. Split you email list into two or more parts and vary the sending time. Your email marketing software will provide the statistics of opening rates so the answer, specific to you, will be there on the screen.

This should not be seen as a one-off experiment. To seek a continual advantage you have to repeat it at regular intervals as circumstances will change. Do not go for a 50/50 split, especially if you are considering something a little atypical. The unusual can startle and reassurance is important. So perhaps try 5% if your email lists are large enough to make it statistically significant.

The most exciting thing about email marketing is that there are very few absolute truths. This means that experimentation might well give you an advantage. But there is one fact that has stood the test of time. Do not send emails when it is convenient to you. If your IT department suggests 0200 is a good time for the server, point out that it is on none of your email lists.

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