weBranding
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Articles
    • Five Simple E-mail Marketing Tips
    • Mandatory Elements for Business e-Newsletters
    • The 411 on E-mail Testing
    • What is the Value of Text vs. HTML E-mails?
    • The Hows & Whys Behind E-mail Marketing
    • What’s the Best Time to Send Your e-Newsletter?
    • Effective E-mail Subject Lines
    • How to Improve E-mail Open Rates
    • Four E-mail Marketing Ideas
    • Key Benefits of Landing Pages
    • A Tip on Writing Google AdWords
    • Get the Most Out of Google AdWords
    • Simple Search Engine Optimization Tips
    • Four Easy Tips to Improve Your Next Presentation
    • Nine Tips to a Great Webinar
    • Choosing a Webinar Vendor
    • Conducting a Successful Webinar
    • Four PowerPoint Presentation Tips
    • Create a Winning Press Kit
    • Campaign Development Checklist
    • Why Commercials are Like Airline Tickets
    • The Third Dimension
    • Pricing Into Oblivion
    • Proving the Value of PR
    • Trust And Loyalty Go Hand-in-Hand
    • How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis
    • Digging Up Your Best Prospects
    • Create Better Ads
    • Learn From Spying
    • Why Waste Space?
    • Tips For An Effective Opt-in Form
    • The Unique Selling Proposition Explained
    • Five More E-Mail Subject Line Tips
    • The Hows & Whys Behind E-mail Marketing
    • What's the Best Time to Send Your e-Newsletter?
  • White Papers
    • A Corporate Web-Based e-Newsletter Is Within Reach
    • Enhance Lead Generation & Sales With e-Newsletters
    • e-Newsletters: Increased Sales & Profitability
    • Learn To Use e-Newsletters Smartly
    • Five Steps To Plan A Strategic e-Newsletter Program
    • Utilizing Web Meeting Tools As An Operational Advantage
    • Six Simple e-Newsletter Publishing Tips
    • Conducting a Successful Webinar
    • Enhance Lead Generation & Sales With e-Newsletters
    • e-Newsletters: Increased Sales & Profitability
  • Email Gallery
  • Services
    • Marketing Consultation
    • Site Development
    • Interactive Marketing
  • Contact
  • Subscribe via RSS

What’s the Best Time to Send Your e-Newsletter?

Traditional wisdom suggests Tuesday through Thursday mornings. But the long answer is much more complicated, and like most e-mail marketing questions, depends on numerous variables and your specific situation. Before we get to the longer answer, below are a couple of fairly straightforward strategies to determine the best time to send out promotional messages:

  • Survey your subscribers via e-mail as to what time of the day they would most like to receive e-mails, and give them a half dozen time periods to choose from. Then send e-mails to the responding subscribers based on their preferences.
  • If you have an opt-in form on your Web site, allow the subscribers to select the time period they’d like to receive e-mails when they sign-up. If you notice a trend you might think about changing the launch day and time of your e-Newsletter.
  • Conduct a mini-focus group by contacting a dozen of your best subscribers (meaning a high open and click-through rate) and find out what time they’d like to receive your messages. Of course these conversations can serve a dual role to help you learn what types of information and format would be most valuable and preferred.
  • Test. The best method is always to conduct tests. Segment your list into equal random groups and e-mail the identical message to each segment at key time periods (keeping in mind differences by time zone).
  • Consider segmenting based on time zone. Segment your list according to their state/zip code and corresponding time zones. When you’ve determined optimum mailing times this ensures that your message reaches subscribers across the country all at the same local time period.

Now to the more complex answer. For the past several years almost every industry report has shown that the best time to e-mail business-to-business messages is Tuesday through Thursday mornings. And because of this, many e-mail marketers have flocked to these days en mass.

Now more “progressive” e-mail marketing experts are suggesting mailing on either Monday or Friday. The logic is that because the vast majority of firms are mailing in the same time frame, your message has a greater chance to be lost among dozens of other messages. One example they use is a traditional, or “snail” mail direct mailer. If you were to conduct a paper-based direct mail campaign would you prefer that, when your prospects go to their mailboxes, your mailer was the only one, or just one of ten sent on a more “popular” day?

But again, as outlined above, testing and speaking directly with your clients and prospects will produce the best chance for success. I would like to be able to say, “this is the perfect day for you to send out your e-Newsletter,” but with all the variables that just isn’t possible.

About weBranding

Hi, I'm Tommy. I'm an interactive marketing executive, writer, tech geek, and sometime designer. I live in St. Louis, Missouri. I currently work as an interactive marketing consultant. You can view my online resume here.

weBranding is my creative outlet, testbed, and digital playground. You’ll find articles and posts about interactive marketing, online publishing and community development, information architecture, graphic design, gaming, and all things digital. To contact me you can send an e-mail to tommy [at] weBranding [dot] org.

Follow Me Online

Facebook Twitter LinkedInYouTube

Email Creative Slideshow

    Get the Flash Player to see the slideshow.

Interactive Marketing Articles

  • Email Gallery
  • Five Simple E-mail Marketing Tips
  • Mandatory Elements for Business e-Newsletters
  • What is the Value of Text vs. HTML E-mails?
  • What’s the Best Time to Send Your e-Newsletter?
  • Effective E-mail Subject Lines
  • How to Improve E-mail Open Rates
  • Key Benefits of Landing Pages
  • A Tip on Writing Google AdWords
  • Get the Most Out of Google AdWords
  • Simple Search Engine Optimization Tips
  • Why Commercials are Like Airline Tickets
  • Pricing Into Oblivion
  • Trust And Loyalty Go Hand-in-Hand
  • Digging Up Your Best Prospects
  • Tips For An Effective Opt-in Form
  • The Unique Selling Proposition Explained
  • The Hows & Whys Behind E-mail Marketing
  • What's the Best Time to Send Your e-Newsletter?
  • Enhance Lead Generation & Sales With e-Newsletters
  • e-Newsletters: Increased Sales & Profitability

Elsewhere Online

  • A List Apart
  • Ad Contrarian
  • Eric A. Meyer
  • Jeffrey Zeldman
  • Mashable
  • ReadWriteWeb
  • Seth Godin
  • Signal vs. Noise
  • TechCrunch
  • xBlog

Recommended Books

Bulletproof Web Design Tribes Web Standard Solutions

On Writing Well Eric Meyer On CSS Defensive Design for the Web

Archives By Category

Archives By Date


© Copyright 1995-2010 weBranding. All rights reserved.
Powered by WordPress 2.8.6 & GoDaddy.