In our Email Data Report, we analyzed 93,611 emails from over 2,158 email lists, and what we found was… a whole lot of sameness. Yes, it seems email marketing has become an exercise in mimicry and monotony, and this pattern held true when we took a closer look at the times of day and days of the week when email marketers are pushing out their correspondence and e-newsletters. Just take a look at the breakdown of our report’s email schedule data below. Notice any trends?
Overall, 86.9% of the emails we analyzed were sent during the work week, with a sharp drop in send rates over the weekend. We also saw a peak in email send volume near lunchtime (between 11-1 EST), with a secondary peak near the end of the workday (approx. 5pm EST).
Looking at this data, it’s clear to see that email campaign schedules have been designed with a typical 9-to-5 desk job in mind, hitting inboxes during the lunch hour and after-work wind-down with the aim of increasing open rates.
Get Loverboy on the phone, because it looks like email marketers have taken “Working for the Weekend” to heart.
But email marketers, don’t simply fall prey to the lemming effect! With less email traffic to compete with on Saturdays and Sundays, why not try sending a weekend email or two to see if your open rates get a boost? For many office workers out there (like myself), weekend email reading offers a welcome respite from the pressure to constantly prioritize my inbox by importance and urgency. On weekends, I approach my inbox with an attitude more akin to how I peruse the Sunday paper, grazing my way through emails I didn’t or couldn’t get to during office hours. While an affinity for catching up on email over the weekends won’t hold across all industries and audiences, with less than half the email noise to compete with on Saturdays and Sundays there is less buzz to cut through to get eyes on your content.
Of course — proactive analytics platform that we are — we’d never suggest you make a change in your marketing tactics without the data to elucidate the results. Make sure to use A/B testing to find out if a weekend wave of emails works for your audience.
The Rise of Mobile
And while we’re talking about being proactive, email marketers have more and more reason to diversify their email schedules as consumers spend more time sifting through email on their smartphones. As mobile email reading continues to rise, the rationale of tailoring email marketing schedules around the prototypical work day is losing its luster. According to an analysis from the US Consumer Device Preference Report: Q4 2013 from Movable Ink, over half of all email (65%) is now being accessed via mobile devices in the U.S. Take a look at your own mobile email tendencies as a single case study. How many times do you check your email on your smartphone outside of the office? Do you scroll through your inbox in bed to start the day? Send out a few quick responses while waiting in line for your morning coffee?
If so, you’re not alone. Mail Chimp conducted a study on mobile email usage, and found that 77% of participants admitted to checking their email “everywhere” or “obsessively.” Mail Chimp’s study also found little differentiation between business and personal email perusal, as 87% percent of participants reported reading work and personal emails together.
It’s clear that the more mobile our technologies become, the greater potential there is for our personal and professional lives to blend. And as the 9-to-5 work day becomes a vestige of the employment past, email marketing tactics will need to pivot in response. A marketer’s job is never done, so if you ever start to feel like you’ve fully optimized your email campaigns, just imagine all the changes wearable tech will bring!