Timing of Newsletters

[TheTrish]

Hi Everyone,

I am just starting a new email campaign for one of my clients and I usually send out all Newsletters on Tuesday Morning as this seems to be the recommended time.

However I just looked at the website stats and that suggested that the site is most popular between 9am and 1pm Mondays by quite a large amount.

The logical action in my eyes would be to target these people when they are online and the site is most popular, eg 9am - 1pm Monday's.

Or should I target the less popular time to increase visits during that time.

Also do you notice when and what time a newsletter comes in. I don't, but I was just wondering if we start sending out Newsletters on Monday's and then move to Tuesday's later will we annoy our audience. I would like to test the audience but not to the point of inconsistency and I certainly don't want to annoy them.

Any suggestions or personal experiences of your most popular time or day on your website and if you targeted that time, or not, to send out your newsletters and what results you had?

[petercrocker]

Hi Trish,
This sounds like a great opportunity to run some split-testing and measure the response rates you're hoping to achieve. This would enable you to compare the same message at different times and see if it impacts the results without having to send the newsletter to the whole database.
Cheers
Peter

[Burgo]

Does your newslatter appear on your website before it is sent out by email?

If it doesnt then does the time you send out your newsletter really matter.

I recieve several newsletters from other associations within the cleaning industry. I grateful that I recieve them but I certainly dont hangout at my computer waiting for them to come in.

[BB]

Hey Trish!

I receive lots of newsletters, and I didn't realise how many there were until just recently - when I noticed that the majority of them all land in my inbox on Tuesday.

Needless to say - there are so many on Tuesdays that I just end up dumping them and not reading many of them. And, I've noticed that because there are so many on this day, it's starting to annoy me, so I'm now unsubscribing.

I send my newsletter on random days - but quite often it's a Sunday night. In the future, I'll be making sure that it doesn't go on a Tuesday - else it might end up in the same place as all the others - the junk file, and then the delete button.

B.B.

[LukeH]

I definitely agree with Split Testing as every subscriber base is different. This is evidenced by the spike in website traffic your client is seeing on Mondays. Monday is a quieter traffic day for many websites.

Most of us don't sit by our inbox waiting for the next email newsletter to arrive, so I think you'll be more than safe sending on different days without upsetting people

You are far more likely to annoy people and have them unsubscribe if your content is poor. Focus on content and appeal to your audience and they will be happy whenever you decide to send.

[TheTrish]

Originally Posted by petercrocker

Hi Trish,
This sounds like a great opportunity to run some split-testing and measure the response rates you're hoping to achieve. This would enable you to compare the same message at different times and see if it impacts the results without having to send the newsletter to the whole database.
Cheers
Peter

This is a great idea. I didn't even think of splitting the emails into groups.

[TheTrish]

Originally Posted by B.B.

Needless to say - there are so many on Tuesdays that I just end up dumping them and not reading many of them. And, I've noticed that because there are so many on this day, it's starting to annoy me, so I'm now unsubscribing.

I know Tuesday seem to be the popular day to send them so I wanted to base my timing on the actual website stats. Funny when you start to look you see. I was surprised as well.

[MissieK]

I was at an event last night and someone said that for the wedding industry, the best times are monday morning & late Friday afternoon for newsletters! It really depends on your industry.

Testing is probably the best thing to do to find the perfect time to send it out

Melissa

[Lucki]

Hi Trish,

I tend to send my newsletters out towards the end of the week but I agree that it may differ from industry to industry. The split testing is certainly the way to go.

Cheers
Lucki

[Sef]

Maybe the discussion should be when NOT to send newsletters. Most people spend more time on a computer on weekdays than on weekends so sending a newsletter just prior to the weekend is imho a no-no. The Friday afternoon wind down - which apparantly exists ;-) may give you a spike in activity, but any momentum you may have built disappears over the weekend.