A Few Words on Timing

Research has been done to determine the optimal timing for an effective marketing e-mail delivery. The conclusions are not unambiguous, but they still provide some insight into the matter, with several points worthy of consideration. 

So the mailing list is built (and, needless to add, authorized…), the newsletters are designed and produced, now the question is: when to email? Will it be most effective on a weekday or maybe on a weekend? What timing will bring the best results?

Research has been done to determine the optimal timing for an effective marketing e-mail delivery. The conclusions are not unambiguous, but they still provide some insight into the matter, with several points worthy of consideration.

If a monthly newsletter has been chosen, it is best to determine the mailing date as accurately and consistently as possible: it can be a preset date, such as the 1st of each month, or a preset day of the week at the beginning or end of each month, such as the first Tuesday of every month. One creative idea can be setting specific dates of interest, such as the date on which the CPI is published, for a monthly economic review newsletter for example.

A message in a weekly or a biweekly newsletter is best delivered on a preset day of the week. Here a distinction is worth making between private and business recipients: while the latter are most likely to read their e-mail on weekdays, especially from Tuesday through Thursday, private recipients mostly read theirs on weekends (from Friday night through Sunday).

Regarding the actual time of delivery, here too it is worth making a distinction between business and private sectors. Business recipients are likely to read their messages during the workday, with the most attention drawn during the early afternoon (1-2pm) and towards the end of the workday, when the attention would be more focused, but when there is the risk of the recipient leaving the office and reading the message only the next day.

Conversely, private customers are most likely to read their mail on evenings and weekends, which allows for less flexibility. Those who decide to mail on weekends will find that Friday nights are when Internet usage is the heaviest.

Good delivery timing makes for more effective e-mail marketing, but unfortunately the precise optimal timing is unknown. Nevertheless, it pays to generally observe and take into account the behavioral patterns of various demographics at different times and to plan the delivery of the newsletters in advance: regular and consistent delivery creates positive expectation in a recipient of the e-mail messages.