When to email your list is one of those topics that you can research and find conflicting answers or discussions about. That’s because there are a lot of variables to consider. Like what your industry is and what types of emails you typically send out most often.
I’m going to tell you what works best for me based on my own personal tests and experiences. You should also keep in mind that I am in the Home Business industry, although I believe most people reading this article will be in the same industry. What your target audience is exactly can help you determine when the best times are to send them emails, as I will discuss in a minute.
First, there are two types of emails we in the Home Business industry send to our list. Those with helpful tips or value added content and those pitching a sale. Too many people send far too many pitching emails and little to no value emails to their list. If you want to increase the response rate of your list and keep people from unsubscribing, a good rule to live by is to send 50-80% valuable content with nothing to buy.
It is crucial that you understand and plan on that because it’s the pitching emails that you want to get the best response with. People can receive an email with some great tips in it any time of the day or night or week and use that information whenever they want to. More importantly though, it’s the volume of those quality content emails that make them eager to see your next email which might be the pitch email.
In my experience there are only 2 days of the week that I have never really had a great response for pitching emails. That being Friday and Saturday.
To be more specific, Friday mornings can actually be a good time to send emails to your list. Starting in the late afternoon on Friday and through Sunday afternoon, most people are busy doing things they enjoy or spending time with their family. That’s their time off and the majority of your list is not going to be sitting at their computer during those times.
Then Sunday afternoon or evening, which happens to be my favorite time to email my list, that’s when people sit down at their computer and start getting caught up on emails.
If you think about this from more of a psychological perspective – what are the people on your list thinking about late in the day every Sunday?
Bummer, back to the daily grind tomorrow… 🙁 Dang, starting tomorrow morning I have to endure another week with that lousy job or boss.
All the people on your list are on your list for a reason. Because they are looking for a way to make some extra money. Or maybe they want to make enough that they can get completely away from their sucky job. The specific reasons might vary quite a bit (horrible boss, job itself sucks, they work too many hours, they don’t get paid enough) but the bottom line is still the same… They want something different.
All those thoughts come on real strong Sunday afternoon or evening and so… they are all much more open minded at looking at your offer to solve that problem for them.
Early Monday morning is also a good time. Some people get on their computer before they leave the house to go to work. Or, after that first long horrible day back at work, they come home to find the email you sent them early Monday morning.
Personally, I like to have some good strong or aggressive emails ready to go out Sunday evening and Monday morning but I try to email my list at least once a day every day. I target the day or time based on what I just told you and what the content is that I’m sending out.
For example, Friday and Saturday I may still email my list even knowing that most people won’t see those emails until Sunday evening. But the content is going to be something valuable that they can use any time or something inspirational. Maybe a success story. Or it could even be Weekend specific. Something that lets those people know that I’m able to do something most people can’t do this weekend because they can’t afford it or because it may run over into Monday or Tuesday and they have to be back at the ole’ job by then.
As far as what times of the day are best, I like to schedule my emails to go out at 7am EST and 4pm EST so I can hit people before they go to work and when they come home from work. It’s either going to be value added content in the morning and a call-to-action email in the afternoon/evening, or two emails with nothing but value.
If your list is also in the Home Based Business industry and you have different experiences or opinions to share, please do so in the comments section below. I’m sure we can all learn from each other. When is your favorite time to email your list?
