Sunday, October 27, 2013

Email Marketing: Is Friday the best day to send marketing emails?

17.9% of a week's worldwide marketing emails are sent on Tuesdays, according to a recent study done by GetResponse. This appears to be justified, given that consumers open 19.9% of the marketing emails they receive on Tuesdays, more than any other day of the week. However, Fridays have the highest worldwide marketing email click rate at 4.9%, higher than the 4.6% click rate on Tuesdays. Fridays also have the highest open rate after Tuesdays, at 19.6%. Yet, only 14.9% of worldwide marketing emails are sent on Fridays, the smallest share of any weekday.

What might explain the high Friday open and click rates? I would hypothesize that people are getting ready for the weekend. They've made it through the week and have some time to catch up on their emails. They may also be looking for things to do over the weekend, like sales to shop or restaurants for dining. They probably also have higher purchase intent because they are further down the funnel and closer in time to when they will go shopping or dine at a restaurant.

Does this mean every marketer should start sending marketing emails on Fridays? The answer to that depends on the marketer. Marketers should start by reviewing their current email marketing performance. If they are marketing products or services that consumers frequently purchase on the weekend, Friday emails may make sense to keep the brand top of mind, as people plan their weekend activities. It might be worth testing Friday emails among a subset of customers to see whether they have any positive impact. If so, the email marketer should then test some different subject lines and email formats to see which gets the best results. The right email marketing strategy will be different for every marketer. Simply sending emails on Fridays may not have much of an impact if your emails are still in the 80% that aren't opened.

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