What’s the best time of day to send your email campaigns?

Let’s just say we get this question… a lot. There is a large amount of data on the topic, but something I stumbled upon today from Get Response Email Marketing gave nice data points that I thought were worth sharing. The figures below are based on 21 million emails in the first quarter of 2012.

Of particular interest:

•  24% of emails are opened in the first hour they are sent (about 10% are opened in the second hour)
• 90% of the openings will be achieved within 5 hours
• Top times for openings are 8 and 9 am, and 3 and 4pm

So what are the key takeaways? If you send too early in the morning, you’ll get lost in the overnight surge of messages. If possible, target the message to send at 8 am in your time zone. Another option is to have the send go in the early afternoon. If you’re a global business, segment your distribution lists by region and send each at the same local time. Above all, measure your results against previous sends and make sure that the new times work for YOUR business.

Email Marketing: Cost-effective lead generation

I was interested to read a report “The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers, Q4 2009” that came across my desk the other day. I am a big believer in permission marketing and the use of direct email. This probably shouldn’t be a surprise given the corporate tagline at Ugroup Marketing is Measurably Better. Direct email is inherently measurable. Unsubscribe is the ultimate response of your irrelevance to the email recipient.

As one might expect, given the economic downturn, companies increased their direct email marketing last year.  When asked “How has the current economic situation altered your email program?”, the top responses included:

• 48% were trying to make their communication more relevant
• 35% identified the need to have direct email “pick up the slack” for other programs
• 34% suggested they are emailing more frequently

Necessity is the mother of invention, and as much as direct email was a viable marketing channel prior to the economic downturn, I suspect that many organizations will retain it and much of the cut advertising spend, as well as tradeshow budgets of 2009, has disappeared forever.