The timing of your email campaign plays a huge role in its success. The day of week and the time of day are both critical to an effective email marketing campaign. Optimal times are not the same for all industries, so for the purpose of this article we will be focusing on email marketing as it relates to real estate agents.
The best measure of effectiveness for email marketing is the "read rate" or open rate. The difference between bad timing and good timing can be 100% increase in the read rate. As you can see, something this important cannot be overlooked.
The formula for optimal timing is quite simple as you can see below:
- Best Times to Send:Normal business local time. We recommend starting no earlier than 9:30 local time and have your campaign finish prior to the end of the business day.
- Best Days to Send: Tuesday through Thursday
Worst Days to Send (In Order):
- Holidays - Statistically the lowest read rates.
- Weekends - The second lowest read rates.
- Fridays - Late afternoon is worse than earlier in the day.
- Mondays - Early morning is worse than later in the day.
This is not a magic formula and actually there is simple logic behind it. We are more likely to look individual emails as they come in, provided the inbox has been cleared from the night before.
To recap, for the best results in your email marketing efforts, send your campaigns Tuesday through Thursday during normal business hours local time. Keep in mind that server time is Eastern Standard Time. If you are sending to a large list, you can change the batch size and frequency up to 500 every 15 minutes for faster sending. Just make the change in the sending options section, which can be found on the step of the email campaign wizard - preview and send.
If you have additional questions about the timing of your email campaigns or other best practices, please give us a call at 888-362-4547 or if you prefer, you can reply back to this email.