The answer to this question, unfortunately, is “it depends.”
We know that’s frustrating. It would be great if we could confidently say that you should be sending your email marketing emails at a specific date and time to maximize your open rates.
However, many factors determine the best time and day to send emails to your audience. So, instead of giving you a specific answer, this article will break down what you should consider when trying to time your emails to give them the best possible chance at reaching your target audience and encouraging them to act.
How to Time Your Emails in Email Marketing
Type this question into any search engine, and you’ll get a lot of different responses based on data from various sources.
For example, one article we looked at claims that Tuesday, Thursday, and Wednesday are the best days to send emails (in that order), although Saturday and Sunday can also have high open and click-through rates. Monday isn’t the worst day to send emails, and nobody really checked what happens on Friday.
Confused yet?
So are we.
That’s why it’s essential to review your own data instead of scouring the internet to find an exact answer to the question, “when is the right time to send your email.”
Here are some things to consider as you perform your study to determine when you should be sending emails.
1. What time will people be reading emails?
Think about the daily habits of your audience. When are they the most likely to sit at their inbox and open emails? For some people, it might be in the early morning or during lunch. Others might hold off on reading their email until evening.
If your email list is an early morning bunch, you may want to schedule your emails to go out late at night, so they’re ready and fresh in the morning. If lunchtime seems the most popular, you may send your email close to noon, so it’s front and center during their lunch break.
If you have already been sending emails, carefully review the data. Determine which times have the highest open rates. If you haven’t experimented with sending emails at different times, do so, then compare the results.
2. What day(s) do(es) your audience read emails?
Many people have habitual email habits, and it’s typical for people to check their emails multiple times throughout the day.
However, checking an inbox and opening an email are not the same. For example, some people might do quick inbox checks throughout the day for urgent messages, then wait until the weekend to open and read their emails.
Review your data to determine which day(s) have the highest open rates. Then, schedule your emails for those days.
3. What type of email are you sending?
Different email campaigns may have different results regarding the best day and time to send them. So, as you review your data, make sure you are comparing apples to apples.
Some of the different campaigns you may send include:
Newsletters
Event invitations
Educational pieces
Requests for information
Educational pieces and newsletters may be more time-consuming to read, so that they may have different open times than event invites.
Need Help with Programmatic Marketing? Let’s Talk
HealthLink Dimensions is a leader in email deployment and programmatic marketing. Our latest data innovation, Send Time Optimization, can help you get higher open rates by give you he intelligence you need to send emails at the right time of day based each member of your audience.
If you have questions about how you can leverage our extensive database to reach more healthcare providers at the right time, get in touch!