Determine the Best Day and Time
You sit down in front of your computer and create an amazing newsletter that’s got a killer subject line. It’s chock full of incredible content, striking photos, and it even has a great call to action. You double-check that all your mail subscribers’ addresses are attached. Then you go to hit send.
And you freeze.
You wonder, is this the right day to send an email? Maybe it’s not the right time of day. Or maybe I’ve missed the window and I should try again tomorrow. But oh, tomorrow is Saturday and I’ve heard I shouldn’t send email newsletters on Saturdays.
Has this ever happened to you? If so, you’re definitely not alone.
The anxiety-provoking act of pressing send can be enough to make you never actually do it.
The Rules For Email Newsletters
So here’s the deal: No one can tell you exactly when to send an email. BUT – there are rough parameters you can definitely follow.
Time of day varies depending on your audience. Are they busy moms who are online at 6am? Do they also have a 9-5 job and they’re checking personal emails at lunchtime or after 7pm? Think about your ideal client. When might they be checking their emails?
The day you send your email should be determined by your audience as well. Are they business people? Then you probably want to send sometime between Tuesday and Thursday. On Mondays, they’re wading through whatever came in over the weekend, and on Friday, they may have mentally checked out already.
Weekends can work if people will be checking their email but I would recommend not sending an email on a weekend where there’s an event like Father’s Day or 4th of July – when you can expect people to not be reading their emails as closely.
What’s Ideal?
When you’re thinking about the “ideal” day and time, you’ll also want to check the metrics of your emails. What I mean by that is, your email marketing platform can tell you the open rate and the click rate and let you know who opened what and when.
Click here for a FREE guide to writing a Killer Email Subject Line
Your goal should be to get a minimum of 20% opens and 3% click-through rates. Depending on your industry those figures may be higher.
If you try sending emails on different days and at different times, you’ll also get a feel for what works best for your subscribers until you find that sweet spot.
Pro Tip for Research
Another way to determine the best day and time to send emails is to see what other people in your niche are doing. Go ahead and sign up for your competitors’ email newsletters and pay attention to when you receive them.
If you get enough of a cross-section of emails from others who have the same ideal clients as you do, you’ll start to notice patterns and be able to come up with best practices for yourself.
When in doubt, however, done is better than perfect. So if you’ve created a fantastic nurture email that will provide your clients with valuable content, and benefit you because they’ll begin to know, like, and trust you, then please just send it when it’s ready.
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To your success,
Melanie