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The day and time that you send your email marketing campaigns can have a significant effect on your open rates, click rates, and results. However, there is not a specific magical day of the week or time of day (or night) that is guaranteed to give you the best possible results. Even research studies that claim to have discovered the perfect day and time to send email marketing campaigns are misleading.
Let’s take a closer look at what you should believe, what you shouldn’t, and how to use send time optimization rather than a magical day and time to improve your email marketing results.
You know all of those research reports that say thousands or millions of email marketing messages were analyzed to identify the best send times and days? Use them as guidance, not rules.
Here’s why.
Those research studies don’t account for the fact that the results are tied directly to when the messages included in the analysis were sent. And guess what? Most email marketing messages are sent on weekdays (when marketers are working).
Can you guess what happens next?
The best send days and times end up being within 24 hours of when those messages are sent – because the vast majority of messages are opened within the first 24 hours after receipt. In fact, the closer to the time of receipt, the more opens a message gets. It’s like a big surge that tapers off very quickly.
So if most of the messages included in a research report went out between Monday and Thursday, you can imagine what the results will tell you – the best days to send will likely be Tuesday, Wednesdays, and Thursday. The same thing applies to the best time to send.
With that said, let’s take a look at a few research studies that tell us when the best days and times are to send email marketing messages in order to get the best results.
From research by Hubspot, here’s the breakdown of the best days to send email marketing messages according to its survey respondents (U.S. marketers):
That’s a fairly even split between three different days with no definitive “best” day.
And here’s what Hubspot’s research found when asking U.S. marketers what the best time of day to send is in order to get the most engagement:
Nothing groundbreaking there – if you send during the six hours between 9 AM and 12 PM, you should be good to go, right?
Not so fast.
Research by MailMunch says the best days to send are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and the day you choose depends on your goals. Want consistency, send on Wednesday. Want the highest open rate? Tuesday is the day to send. Can’t send on Tuesday? Pick Thursday because it’s the second best day to send.
What about time to send? According to MailMunch’s research, the best time to send is between 9 AM and 10 AM, and the worst time to send is between 2 PM and 3 PM. A better time to send is between 7 PM and 10 PM.
Wait a minute! This advice is conflicting. One study shows a certain day and time, and another study shows something different.
No problem. Let’s take a look at another study to get some more information.
According to research by MooSend, the best day to send email marketing messages to get the best open rates is Thursday, and the best time to send is between 8 AM and 9 PM.
Have you thrown your hands up in frustration yet? With all of this conflicting information, what do you do?
I recommend two things:
Who are you sending to? What is their life/day like? When are they most likely to check the email inbox you’re sending to for the type of information you plan to send?
For example, if you’re sending B2B campaigns, then it makes sense to deliver them when recipients are working. Sending over the weekend just doesn’t make sense. Consider your recipient audience and send at the best time for them, not just when it’s convenient for you. This is definitely something you can test to find the best day and time for your specific audience.
If your email marketing platform provides it (as the Cannabiz Media License Database does), use send time optimization based on artificial intelligence and machine learning to send your email marketing messages to each recipient at the time they’re most likely to open based on their prior engagement based on their prior behaviors. This is the best way to go if you can.
Every business, every audience, and every email campaign is different, so you can’t rely on third-party studies to determine the best day or time to send your email messages to your audience. Instead, you need to focus on the performance of your own previous messages and previous messages sent to your audience by peers within your industry.
The only way to effectively optimize your email campaign send time is with a combination of data and flexibility that allows you to customize and personalize when you send your messages as much as you can customize and personalize the content of your messages. Fortunately, you can do exactly that when you send email marketing campaigns using the Cannabiz Media License Database.
The Send Time Optimization tool in the Cannabiz Media License Database uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically deliver your campaign to each recipient at the time they’re most likely to open and engage with it. This send time is based on their prior engagement, not just with your email messages but with every email marketing campaign they’ve received from all Cannabiz Media License Database subscribers.
This is a huge benefit for you because the License Database uses a large amount of data to optimize send times for each recipient. When you send using the send time optimization tool, your results should improve significantly.
Before you send your email campaign, you can choose to send your message to each recipient at the best time for them between a delivery date you choose and up to three days later (see the image below).
That means if you choose to send your message at 10:00 AM on the 1st of the month, you can choose to have the Send Time Optimization tool automatically send your message to each person on your email list at the perfect time between 10:00 AM on the 1st and 10:00 AM on the 2nd (1-day time span), 10:00 AM on the 1st and 10:00 AM on the 3rd (2-day time span), or 10:00 AM on the 1st and 10:00 AM on the 4th (3-day time span).
As an example, consider time zones as a reason why send time optimization can have such a big impact on your email marketing results. Not all of your email recipients will always be in the same time zone, so the best time to send can vary greatly depending on who you’re sending a message to and where they’re located.
Fortunately, when you send your campaigns from the Cannabiz Media License Database, you don’t have to segment your email list and send different messages to each time zone in order to optimize performance (unless you have unique things to say to people in different time zones). Instead, when you use the send time optimization feature, you’ll know your message will land in each recipient’s inbox at the best possible time to drive the highest engagement and results.
Even the best email marketing message won’t perform well if people don’t see it, which is why send time optimization is so important. For marketers trying to get in front of cannabis and hemp license holders using email marketing, the Cannabiz Media License Database makes it easy to create great messages and send them to the right people at the right time using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and a powerful send time optimization tool.
To see the Cannabiz Media License Database in action, schedule a demo and see for yourself how easy it is to connect with cannabis and hemp license holders so you can increase your sales and revenue.
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