Three Golden Rules of Email Marketing
Email marketing is just one segment that makes up the vast world of digital marketing. It’s a way of effectively promoting your business, products or services to your audiences through email campaigns that aim to develop the relationship between your business and customers, clients or leads.
Getting your email marketing right is crucial. It brings people to your website, gets them to make a purchase, complete an action or more importantly, connects with your audience to build brand loyalty.
At its best, email marketing can follow your audiences through the process of going from a cool lead to a loyal customer by keeping them informed through tailored messaging.
At Sentius, we run email-marketing campaigns every single week for our clients. While some businesses are managing this in-house with low-level results, we’re smashing industry benchmarks with results like 72% open rates and 35% click rates. But this takes time, effort, strategic planning and email marketing gurus!
Thinking of implement email marketing to bring more users to your website? There are three key factors that can greatly influence how many opens, clicks and conversions you get from an email campaign; including the day and time of sending, and subject lines!
Let’s take look at these a little closer…
1. The Best Day to Send Emails
Many studies and reports look at the best days to send an email, like these from Customer.io & GetResponse. But the one thing that stands out from the results of our email campaigns is the best distribution days:
- Tuesday - this is the best day to send emails, backed up by many studies and our own results. Customer.io found in their study that 17% of emails are sent on a Tuesday, achieving an overall average open rate of 18% - more than any other day!
- Thursday - try Thursday as a backup day, or if you send more than one email per week, try Thursday as your second day. This is backed up by WordStream and MailChimp’s findings, as they found that peak inbox activity happens on those days.
- Wednesday – studies show that midweek is also popular for email activity as it’s when email users are shown to be most active.
2. The Best Time to Send Emails
With have 24 hours and 1140 minutes each day, how do you decide when to send your email? At Sentius, we find that late morning can be really popular, while late evening comes in a surprising second place.
- 10:00 -11:00am – If you’re not a morning person, don’t worry because most people are when it comes to opening their emails according to the studies
- 8:00pm - midnight – Most likely a result of people checking their emails after work and before they go to bed
- 6:00am - We found through testing our campaigns that a 6:00am email can be a dark horse, and this makes sense because 50% of people check their emails first thing in the morning while still in bed!
If you run you email marketing through MailChimp, you can also try their email send time optimisation feature. This pretty nifty feature analyses your database in real time to help you understand when to schedule your email.
3. The Best Subject Line
What ultimately gets your audience to open your email is the subject line. It’s the first thing that stands out to your subscribers and could make a lasting impression if executed right.
A compelling subject line that stands out amongst the overflowing inboxes of your subscribers is going to connect with them and their needs. Some examples are:
- How to [subject] that will [benefit]
- 10 ways to…
- Last chance to…
- Discover [subject/product/solution]
While these tips are backed by our results and experience, email marketing isn’t always that black and white. Something that works for one audience and campaign, may not work for another. Don’t be scared to experiment. Try different send times, days and subject lines and see what works best for you.
It’s important to get your email marketing right. Try out the best send days and times to suit your audience.
If you need help with your email marketing campaigns contact us on 1300 818 188 or email strategy@sentius.com.au and follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn for all the latest news, tips and trends.
Written by David Bedggood
David has over a decade of experience in digital marketing, strategy and sales, working across a range of industries and businesses. He relishes the opportunity to connect and engage with businesses about marketing and strategy and is most passionate about using strategy to help clients to reach their target audience. David is a proud father, Collingwood supporter and DIY weekend warrior who spends way too much time at Bunnings, and has a knack for purchasing tools he usually never uses again. We also hear David has a few magic tricks up his sleeve. If you're lucky enough to catch him with a deck of cards, be sure to ask for a trick.
Written by David Bedggood
David has over a decade of experience in digital marketing, strategy and sales, working across a range of industries and businesses. He relishes the opportunity to connect and engage with businesses about marketing and strategy and is most passionate about using strategy to help clients to reach their target audience. David is a proud father, Collingwood supporter and DIY weekend warrior who spends way too much time at Bunnings, and has a knack for purchasing tools he usually never uses again. We also hear David has a few magic tricks up his sleeve. If you're lucky enough to catch him with a deck of cards, be sure to ask for a trick.