We’ve already discussed why timing matters when sending emails and how to determine the best time to send emails based on your audience’s habits and preferences.
These articles provided general information about what to consider when timing emails you want your audience to see and open. But what about emails that require a response?
You may be surprised to learn that there are different ways to time emails based on the reaction you want from your audience. When you want them to respond, you will have to consider various factors than if your audience wants to read your email or click on a link.
How Timing An Email Can Impact Reply Rates
Email marketers love to talk about open, bounce, click-through, and engagement rates. But there’s another rate that can make a big difference in the success of your email campaign – reply rates.
Your reply rate (also called a response rate) factors in the number of people who directly reply to your email campaign.
For some emails, you might not expect a high response rate. For example, informational emails that share industry news or company information may not require a reply.
For other emails, you want the person on the receiving end to hit “reply” after they read your email. Sales emails are the best example of this, in which you want someone to reply to get more information or set up a call to learn more about what you are offering.
How to Time Your Emails to Improve Your Response Rate
As with other types of emails, there is no clear-cut answer to the question of “when should I send emails that require a reply?”
However, you can take a common-sense approach to find your starting point, then test with different days and times to see what works best for your audience.
For example, Friday afternoons are notoriously bad days for trying to conduct any type of new business. People are mentally checked out. They might also physically be checked out – it’s not uncommon for people to take off at lunchtime to get a head start on the weekend.
So, avoid Friday if you are sending an email that requires a reply.
The same is true for Monday. This is the day when people are getting into the groove of the week. They are scheduling the rest of the week and might have less patience for emails asking them to schedule a meeting.
And, of course, avoid weekends. For the most part, people don’t want to think about business over the weekend. Any work that gets done tends to be necessary. Your email asking a healthcare provider to schedule a call will either be ignored, deleted, or buried in an inbox.
So, that leaves Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Now, consider timing. People don’t necessarily reply to emails immediately. If you want a same-day response, you may want to send your email in the morning, around 8 AM. Then, you can expect to see replies in the early to mid-afternoon.
Of course, several factors can impact how and when people reply to your emails. So, use this as a starting point. From there, start testing different combinations of days and times to see what garners the highest response rate.
Need Help with Your Email Campaigns? Let’s Connect
Several factors go into creating a successful email campaign. Choose HealthLink Connect to be your partner to broaden your reach and ensure your emails get in front of the right people at the right time.
Our latest update lets you target broader audiences, such as top specialty providers and hospital decision-makers. In addition, you can target granular audiences with hundreds of primary and secondary specialties. Our new triple verification service all but guarantees that emails reach their intended recipients.
Contact us today to learn more about HealthLink Connect’s Send Time Optimization, programmatic marketing and email deployment capabilities. It might be just the thing you need to reach your campaign goals.