How does the saying go? ‘Timing is everything’ - in the case of email marketing, although timing isn’t quite everything, it is extremely important to any marketer who is hoping to see the very best results for all their hard work.

Once you have created a relevant and concise campaign and collected a database of quality leads who are interested in your business, the next phase is to consider the timing of when your subscribers will receive it.

The answer to this question will of course depend on your industry and target audience, however I can point you in the right direction to help discover what you need to consider before you press send. The best way to figure out what time will work best for your individual campaign is to look at your Google Analytics and discover the most popular times and days of the week that users are visiting your website. Add this shortcut to your own Google Analytics and determine exactly what time and day your site receives the most traffic. Why not take a look at the pages which you are hoping to drive traffic to with your campaign and see if users are actively going to your site during working hours, evening or maybe even weekends and start from here.

By taking into account the most popular time of day for your website you will be able to test when subscribers are likely to be more receptive to hearing from you. If your target market is B2B a weekend or evening email probably won’t be considered until Monday morning and then you run the risk of your campaign being lost amongst the post-weekend inbox clearout. However, if you send your email to go into their inbox midweek after lunchtime, the subscriber may just be more likely to have the time, and interest, in your campaign and open the email there and then. Be honest, how many times have you ignored newsletters you considered reading because they were delivered at the wrong time? And how many times have you actually gone back to read it at a later date? By considering which tasks you may be interrupting, you can start to understand what time of the day is more likely to see a better open rate.

Not only does the actual time the newsletter is sent out matter, the timing of your message can also make a large difference to how receptive your audience is to your campaign. By taking into consideration the priorities of your audience at different times, you can tailor your message to better appeal. Finding a way to link your business to behavioural trends, such as resolutions at New Year if you are fitness or healthy living brand, may see an increase in open rates and click throughs. The same is true for your subscribers buying cycles, if you are able to track their visits to sites or recent orders, you can personalise your campaigns to match where they are in their buying cycle. Could you send online discounts to repeat customers who have not purchased anything recently? Or highlight an offer or benefits of particular products/services they been recently viewing? By having a deeper understanding of who is visiting your site, you will then be able to cater your campaigns to their needs.

Like everything with email marketing, regular testing on different days and at different times will help you to find the optimum time for your brand. Have you tested different timings yet?