Are Sundays The New Tuesdays In Email Marketing?
by Josh Nason, sendlabs
Repost

It shouldn’t be a newsflash when I tell you that people check email 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If it is, I’m surprised that you found this blog.

The mindset in our business has forever been that sending on the weekends is taboo because people don’t check emails then and don’t want to be bothered while on their “time off”.

In all actuality though, there is no time off. We’re always on call, trying to maximize our time and achieve as many tasks as possible. Sifting through the inbox is one of those tasks so why would you want to fall in with what everyone else is doing?

Sundays Just Might Be The Next Tuesdays For Sending

I’ve read a few posts here and there about changing the mindset of not sending on weekends, but it really started kicking in for me over the past few weeks. I found that emails I received on Sunday afternoons/early evenings got more of my attention than emails I received at other points during the week.

Of course I was watching football or Sunday TV at the time, but that’s also the point. All I’m doing is relaxing with some time on my hands. That’s the ideal time to try to get someone’s attention with an email! In fact, I’m surprised it’s taken our industry this long to give this a shot.

Think about your own habits. Honestly, is there a day when you don’t check your email? Especially if you’re in business, I would assume you’d live in your inbox all week long so the option of marketing to people during the mental “off-peak” hours should be appealing.

I think the mindset has always been that people don’t check email on weekends to get away from work. While that is a rapidly changing mindset, that has never fully applied to personal email accounts. Do people get away from personal lives and notifications that might affect them (Evites, directions, pictures, etc)?

Of course not. There’s a difference there between personal email and work email – something we’ve all ignored for too long.

What’s the ideal day and time to send?

This is still one of my most asked questions and my answer should always be whenever your reports tell you people are opening and clicking, not “Tuesdays at 2 pm”.

I still think sending on Friday nights, Saturdays or first thing Monday mornings isn’t ideal because of the engagement factor. The goal is to reach people when they are open to interest and will take an action on what you’re sending, not ignore or quickly delete due to being overwhelmed by life around them.

There will always be some unpredictability with this, but if you’re looking for the greater return, send when you at least have a fighting chance of having an action taken. The impending Black Friday sales this week are a perfect example of when sending at wacky hours just might work.

That’s why I’m thinking sending on Sunday afternoons is worth the old college try.

It’s low pressure with a potentially high engagement factor, perfect for some sort of call to action. Keep in mind that messaging is important so the old-school tactics of hitting someone over the head with a hard sell isn’t going to work. Rather, entice and engage.

Whether a Sunday movement works is getting senders to try it. I truly think this could be a way to see some nice upticks in key metrics, the most important being conversions. Before you know it, Sundays may just become the new Tuesdays in email marketing.

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