The best day to blast an email is the day no one else is sending email.
Test, test, and test some more. What works for an environmental group may not for a state association of small business owners. It’s different for everyone. Some have great fundraising success on Sundays and others do better when they get that appeal out by 10am on a work day. If you’re looking to set up a monthly e-Newsletter schedule, consider setting a specific day of the month. Going with the nth day of every month will vary the day of the week over time and keep your subscribers on their toes.
Morning blasts tend to generate a higher response rate than evenings; as people get busier with their work and lives throughout the day, they have less time to take action.
- Matt Reading, Alaska Wilderness League http://www.alaskawild.org/
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Tuesday, 04 August 2009
Email blast timing can be very important depending on the organization and the content of the message. Depending on the urgency of the message, an organization wants to know that there is a relatively higher probability that their constituents will read the message either right away or at least in time to process the information. Therefore, it shouldn’t be a light decision that hasn’t been considered at least somewhat closely. While statistics for each individual organization can vary widely due to changes in context and audience, there are data available for high open and send periods.
Studies have shown that Tuesday and Wednesday are high “send” days which means that many organizations send emails on Tuesday and Wednesday. This same study showed that Wednesday was a high “open” day where many people would read a relative majority of their email. Wednesday forms a peak with slopes pretty equal from Monday to Wednesday and Wednesday to Friday. Numbers were very low on weekends for both sendings and openings. As a general rule, Tuesday through Thursday mornings are a good time to send email while Mondays and Fridays, in general, are worse. These studies, however, were based on business emails, so that nonprofit emails may have a different scheme in which to work. If an organization is asking for personal donations, for example, it might be better to ask a constituent on their down (non-business) time so perhaps a blast after work hours or on a weekend might do well for some organizational emails. The key is to evaluate your constituent base, determine what they are receptive to and how they will respond to what you are telling them. Also, even though it can take a long time to gather data, testing and following how different sending times/days work will go a long way. Unfortuntately there are no easy answers to questions that rely so heavily on context.
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