How to determine the best time to send your audience an email newsletter

“When is the best time to send our email newsletter?” is a question that we have heard so many times.

Everything depends on timing, right? Even though timing might not be everything, it undoubtedly matters, especially when trying to persuade subscribers to notice and open your emails.

To answer this question, it is crucial to understand your target audience’s behaviour. This will help you to know the times when you'll be most successful in grabbing their attention and inspiring them to take your desired steps.

That being said, the most honest response to this question is: it depends.

Depending on the industry, target audience and engagement objectives, there are different ideal times to send email newsletters. There is no perfect time to send an email newsletter.

Every email list consists of a group of people with distinctive routines and everyday habits. Depending on the target market, these can differ greatly. The most effective time to send marketing emails will not always be the same for a restaurant or law firm. You have to know your target audience in detail to be able to succeed in this.

A newsletter created specifically for your product, brand, and target market is the basis of email marketing engagement. Your email campaigns must be tested, analysed and optimised over time in order to achieve this.

“Yes, but how does this work practically?” you might ask. Let's get started.

1. Understand your target audience

To kickstart this research, there are a number of questions that you will need to answer regarding your target audience:

Who are the recipients of your emails? What does their routine look like on a daily basis? Is the audience B2B or B2C? In actuality, B2B audiences typically have different work patterns than B2C audiences. Therefore, it would be great if you considered this aspect. What issues are they encountering? In what ways can your solution or product assist in resolving these issues?

When you have answered these questions, you will have a greater chance of sending your email newsletters at the time when the recipients will be most likely to read and interact with them.

2. Determine your goals

We cannot stress this point enough: you cannot send an email newsletter out just for the sake of it. There has to be a goal.

If you want to increase your newsletter engagement by 3%, for instance. With that objective in mind, you'll understand that you should concentrate on certain factors that affect engagement, such as interesting content, personalisation, a catchy subject line, etc. This is a great place to incorporate a call to action (CTA) in order to create an opportunity to connect. Be open-minded to testing a few different aspects of your email newsletter and examining their effects on engagement.

Here are other types of goals that can influence your sending times:

• Just a friendly reminder: If you need to remind your receivers of something, send them an email one day in advance and another one an hour before the event.
• Short engagement: A brief, informative email delivered at any time on a business day will do if your goal is to maintain your brand at the forefront of your customers' minds.
• Long engagement: Send emails during less popular or busy times of the day, such as Friday afternoon, evening or the weekend evening, if you want your recipients to spend more time reading your campaigns.

3. Understand your content type

The type of content you send also impacts the time your customers are likely to read your emails.

If you’re sending out an email newsletter that informs your audience about fun activities to do over the weekend, Friday would be a wonderful choice to send your email newsletter out. You’ll have a more engaged subscriber that is looking for things to do over the weekend.

4. Segment the people in your email list

Your subscriber list can be segmented by breaking it up into smaller lists based on important factors like location, business type, purchasing history, or demographics. By doing this, you can deliver more focused email marketing by using segments to discover what has the greatest effect on each target audience.

Your email marketing platform should ideally contain a segmentation function that will make the process simple for you. At Mail Blaze, we allow you to segment your subscribers. You can separate them into groups based on multiple factors.

5. Determine which device your target audience is using

Now that you understand that you can segment your subscribers in order to understand when the best time is to capture their attention, you can go a bit further.

For desktop users who are opening emails at work, the typical mid-week, mid-day makes perfect sense. On the other hand, mobile users frequently remain active well into the evening.

You can especially disregard the conventional advice to avoid sending emails at night if you are marketing to a young, tech-savvy target audience. In fact, younger audiences might benefit greatly from emails that are sent in the evening.

6. Find out where your audience is located

You should take into account the fact that your consumers may be in different time zones before sending emails to them. If you've gathered a location field from your subscriber list, you can use this information to send out your emails by location based on different time zones. This will avoid sending emails at awkward times.

7. Consider special holidays and events

Given that so many people are shopping over the holidays, it can be one of the ideal times to send mass emails (for example, at the beginning of the Christmas season).

Let's take a closer look at these significant holidays on your audience's calendars:

• Christmas: Pre-Christmas email advertising should be launched around the first and second weeks of November, according to experts. During the Christmas season, there is a dip on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but overall click-through rates are at an all-time high. To take advantage of post-Christmas promotions, you could also wish to send an after-Christmas newsletter. To prevent competition, it is advisable to launch your holiday email marketing campaign in the late evening.
• New Year: Open rates are still low at the start of the New Year, although engagement levels do gradually rise from January 5 to January 8. For email marketers, this makes it the ideal time to send email newsletters that preview new goods or services.
• Black Friday: Customers looking for discounts may want to check for Black Friday deals a week or two prior to the big day. Sending an email once or twice every week is great when it comes to subtly developing anticipation.

We encourage you to continue experimenting and seeing what works best for your customers. Bear in mind that your subscribers are already interested in your content; so, as long as you’re sending them emails that are related to that, you have a good chance of getting your desired email marketing results through your newsletter.

Here are the key lessons you should remember when sending your newsletters:

• Consider what your customers’ everyday routines and habits will be like by putting yourself in their position. If you can’t determine this by yourself, you can take advantage of link triggers to segment your customers to know exactly what they want and when.
• If you want your newsletter to receive more opens and clicks, send it during the week. If you want your audience's undivided attention, send it during the weekend.
• Before deciding on a certain day and time, consider your marketing objectives, your messaging and your subscribers’ preferences. Perhaps you can collect data through a survey.
• Remember: It’s not only about mastering the perfect timing to send your emails. High-quality content will keep your subscribers engaged and eager to read your newsletters.

You can never get too comfortable with email marketing, just like most things in life. While data can suggest particular days and times for delivering email newsletters, the truth is that the ideal time and day to send your newsletters truly depends on who you're sending them to. To get the best results, evaluate different possibilities and make sure you fully understand your target audience.

If you feel inspired to create and send an email newsletter and need some help, don’t hesitate to reach out to us—we will gladly help you send out your first mass email.