Email Blasts - Day of the Week

Today I attended a "Power of Email Marketing" seminar hosted by Paige Cahill with Constant Contact to see what's new in email marketing. In talking with some of the other attendees, one of them mentioned something to me that really caught me off guard. This gentleman said, "I used to send out emails on Friday afternoons." That shocked me because people have a shorter attention span on Fridays, especially Friday afternoons. They are thinking about the upcoming weekend. I think he's realized that there is a little bit of science behind when to send those email blasts to your distribution list.

Back in 2004 when I began my journey in marketing, one of my first responsibilities was being an editor for a newsletter with a distribution list of 1,300 contacts. Through research, our technical writer found out that the best time to send an email blast was Tuesday evening so that it would be in our contacts' email inbox to be opened Wednesday morning. Back then, most people weren't pulling up emails on phones and accessing information 24/7. Today with most mobile devices able to access email, when is the best time?

Obviously the number one goal with your email blast is to get people to open it! In general, Mondays and Fridays are out. That leaves you Tuesdays through Thursdays, but what time during the day? My suggestion is the afternoon. The morning is used to go through the emails from the previous day, what was sent overnight and preparing for your day.

Of course each business has a different target market that have different needs and habits. Think about your habits with reading emails and think about how that differs from your target market before you send your next email blast.