Emailing to Professional Associations' Members - When is the Best Time?

Recently email marketing provider Informz issued its 2011 E-mail Marketing Benchmarking Report containing some very interesting statistics regarding the better times of the day to send an e-mail.

Two key statistics jumped out at me. First, email messages sent in the morning reportedly have the highest open rate.

Morning	Mid-Day	Afternoon	Night
41.49%	34.19%	32.62%	30.58%

In comparison, the report claims that emails sent in the afternoon have the highest click-through rates:

Morning	Mid-Day	Afternoon	Night
15.32%	19.15%	20.41%	18.89%

These statistics made me think about the time of day we are sending emails on behalf of our clients.  It may be that information-based emails (newsletters, etc) are best sent in the morning, when the contact is getting ready for the day (before all the meetings, calls, etc).  Emails that contain calls-to-actions (registration for events, etc) may have better results if sent in the afternoon.

But there are no “silver bullets” here.  The only way to know for sure is to test and monitor the results closely.  You could, for instance, split your test into two and send to list #1 in the morning, and the same e-mail to list #2 in the afternoon.  Randomize your lists and do this with at least 3-4 emails of a similar nature (e.g. your regular monthly E-newsletter).  Make sure you keep all other factors consistent.  This is the only way you will know with as much certainty as possible what works for your members!

Other things to test may also include:

• Subject lines:  should you use a directive subject line? (“Register by…”) or a provocative one (“Don’t be left out in the cold!”)?
• Day of the week: some reports say never send on a Monday or Friday.  But what is true for your audience?
• Length of message: are you better off giving snippets of the information with a link for members to “read more”, or are you better off having the entire text in the e-mail?

The goal of testing is learn about how members react to different elements of your messages so you can more effectively reach them.