Timing is everything
Doug Dennison
Founder at GrowthKit, the step-by-step growth system for B2B founders ??
So far we’ve looked at opportunity and relevancy, links below:
This week we’re looking at timing.
There are a bunch of things to consider when you’re planning your next email.
Subscriber time zone
Take into account the location of your subscribers. Would you prefer campaigns that can be dispatched at the same local time for every country, or would it be better to accommodate everybody and send your emails at an equal native time for all (such as GMT)?
Best open rate time
This level indicates the importance of testing and measuring {industry} metrics. They can change depending on the year or if a global occurrence (I’m looking at you COVID-19) impacts the financial system.
Seasonal or topical
Think about the obvious things, national holidays, winter or summer, important world events (e.g. Coronavirus). If you're consciously tweaking your email marketing approach to the time of year or what's going on in the real world, you can apply that to the brand by offering things like coupons, holiday flash sales, product ranges to suit holiday periods like Thanksgiving in America or Australia Day in... you get the idea.
For a nationwide email campaign, it's a little easier, but when you continue to attract more involved subscribers, there's no doubt that you're going to want to cater for others located outside your country of operation. Finding the sweet spot when looking at various local holidays and trends at different times of the year will actually help you market the products at particular times. Just 15 percent of businesses offer priority to their foreign email marketing, so doing so could set you a step ahead of your rivals.
The best time to send your email depends on a number of factors, mainly your industry, your brand and your audience:
Industry and niche
First, be aware of the industry you are in as well as your niche. Whether you’re B2B or B2C isn’t granular enough, go deeper and understand what micro-industry you are in and whom you serve.
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Brand
Your brand ID or TOV (tone of voice) will also play a factor here, so be aware of who YOU are. Your brand voice, design, USPs, personality, ethics, values etc, they all play a part
Audience
Now be aware of who your customer is. Depends on who your customer is, and what they like. You could have 2 identical businesses, each selling the same type of product, but their best time will be dramatically different to yours, based on locations, demographics, gender, income etc.
Industry average best time to send
To boil it down (as there’s a LOT of advice out there), most people tend to steer towards this:
BUT, ignore industry averages
I’m gonna ask you to ignore all that and look at your own audience. Try to ignore the ‘advised’ best send times and look at your own sending patterns and data. Send more frequently / less frequently, send in the middle of the week / send on a Friday evening. There’s no one size fits all, and besides, if everyone else is following the same sending patterns and you don’t… you’re gonna get noticed!
Still not sure?
Depending on what platform you use to send out your emails, there may be some smart options for you to pinpoint the best time to send out your email based on loads of fancy AI wizardry, but again, skip that, send at a few different times, test the water, and see what sticks. try A/B testing at different times to see what works specifically for you.
Next week, Execution. The nice kind.
To skip the wait and learn more about email marketing strategy, you can download my free book Send Awesome Email here: https://mailninja.co/book