Timing is Everything When It Comes to Email Marketing

While journalists are deadline-driven, the old model of informing consumers first thing in the morning may be dying. Digital publications may need to adopt

While journalists are deadline-driven, the old model of informing consumers first thing in the morning may be dying. Digital publications may need to adopt a more “evening news” approach to engaging with audiences, as numerous studies show that prime-time viewing now includes computer and tablet-viewing.These lessons should also inform your email marketing strategy. A new analysis by Retention Science found that timing — from hours to days — can significantly impact eCommerce sales. And while content is a bit of a different product, the data does look like it could be applied to subscription sites.First, Retention Science found that email conversion rates for product sales tend to be higher in the evening, after work. Paid content publishers should keep this in mind, especially if they’re pushing out long-form content — audiences might be more amenable to a long read (especially in the B2C realm) after hours. (B2B publishers, in most cases, are wiser to email during work hours, although they should definitely test a morning vs. afternoon email.)Second, the study found that Tuesday and Friday were better days for conversions. Saturday was abysmally low.Lastly, and most importantly, the study found that prospects who signed up for a free email newsletter were most likely to purchase something in the first 14 days after sign-up. That means that publishers who are using free newsletters to engage with audiences should push their paid content products within the first two weeks of sign-up.Interestingly, the offer of “free shipping” outperformed discounts by more than 100%. While digital content implicitly has no shipping charge, publishers may want to test whether having their content “delivered free to your Inbox” might help with conversions.

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