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Best time to send email to sell more

You have a killer email that you want to send out to your list. You want to catch people at the perfect time and have high open rates and engagement rates. you want to sell stuff.

What time do you send it? What day of the week?

4pm Tuesday?

9:45am Wednesday?

8am Saturday?

Unless you are a seasoned email marketer you’ll likely guess wrong.

The conventional wisdom among email marketing gurus is mid morning on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. With open rates peaking on Thursday morning. Actually the gurus say 10AM is the magical time. And I have evidence that 930am to 1030am is the optimal target time.

I learned this when I worked as the Infusionsoft (now Keap) guru on best-selling author Neil Strauss‘ team. Neil is an email marketing mastermind and I owe him a lot from my time working with him.

Of course Neil’s audience is primarily ambitious young men in their 20s and 30s. Over the years we have used this wisdom in most of our clients campaigns and it seems to work nicely. But I never personally tested it. A little voice in the back of my head always asked: Does this hold up for every list?

Is age of recipient a factor for open rates?

The easy answer is pretty much yes, with some variables. Age is a factor. Teens and younger 20somethings (read: college students) get out of bed later in the AM so later in their schedule is better than early in the AM to receive an email. They are typically in bed until mid morning. 1pm is a good time catch them. Now this sounds like a stereotype (and not all college kids are in bed til 10AM), but we are talking about aggregated behavior here to get the most out of a volume send.

Retirees have a different schedule. Early day is better. Afternoon not so much. Why? Sleep cycles of older people have them rise early.

Working people tend to be in front of their computers or smartphones or tablets between 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. As you would expect Mondays are a bad day as people are prioritizing urgent work and not browsing their inbox. After noon on Friday and even anytime Friday at all is generally a bad time to send a marketing email, except for calls to action around a deal or offer, as they seem to engage going into a weekend. Again, this needs to be tested for any specific list.

What about email sends on weekends?

There’s some evidence that if the target audience is an interest group around niche leisure time that weekend sends are a good idea. However, I have some evidence to the contrary, which I will explain below.

I recently decided to test it and what I discovered was surprising. My test audience was a large 25K list that belongs to a client who I am consulting with. It is made up of people interested in a niche Caribbean recipe site. It consists largely of women living in the U.S., in their 30s, 40s and 50s. But there is also decent contingent of men (20%) on the list. There are Canadians and British subscribers (totalling 10%) mixed in to the list too.

The site they follow (and subscribed on) tracks the biggest traffic volumes on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday is actually the site’s biggest traffic day. They are weekend home cooks, essentially. It would suggest that the weekend would be a better time to send an offer, right? Nope.

We tried a Saturday at 10AM send and the open rate and engagement was half of the Thursday AM send. People are not in front of their computers or paying attention to email on their phones on weekends.

How to test send times

Here’s how I tested for optimal send times.

I segmented the list on Keap (a smart CRM and email campaign system) to test for my client when the best send times would be for this audience just so we could optimize revenue against from list.

We sent the same email to 750 different people every hour on a Thursday from 8AM to 5PM – we also added a 930AM send.

Here’s what we found in the data within 48 hours of the send:

Best times to send for highest open rates noon and 1pm however engagement rates (with the email offer) were better at 1PM and 2PM.

Best time to send for high engagement rates: 930AM and 10AM were better on the first day of the send for open rates and engagement with the offer. On Day 2 (24 hours after the send) the 1PM and 2PM group had slightly better open rates and very good engagement rates.

But the best engagement rate over all came from the 930am group even though the open rate was about 0.75% (three quarters of a percent) lower.

After 48 hours, the best engagement rate was 50% better from the openers at 930am than at 10am and similarly at 11am. The engagement rates were similar to the 930am group for those that received emails at the 1pm and 2pm sends.

There also a weird anomaly for a high open rates for the 5pm group. Like an end of day email check when work is done, however it had a significantly lower engagement rate. People were opening, but not clicking the call to action.

Actual sales from the campaign transacted as follows:

27% of all sales transactions occurred between 930am and 10am, 27% after work hours between 630pm and 11pm

This suggests that people rarely buy immediately, but they save emails and go back to them when there is something of interest. You need to give them a deadline, however, and threaten to take the good deal away if they don’t act.

However, 80 per cent the sales from the campaign came from the people who received the 930am email.

Your list behavior may vary. It’s worth doing the legwork to test the list.

The bottom line: Send to your list between 930am and 1030am on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Preferably Thursday. Keep the offer open over the weekend. Send a casual reminder email, but don’t expect high open rates on the weekend.

The best time to send marketing emails to maximize sales and engagement

You have a killer email that you want to send out to your list. You want to catch people at the perfect time and have high open rates and engagement rates. you want to sell stuff.

What time do you send it? What day of the week?

4pm Tuesday?

9:45am Wednesday?

8am Saturday?

Unless you are a seasoned email marker you’ll likely guess wrong.

I learned this when I worked as the Keap guru on best-selling author Neil Strauss’ team. Neil is an email marketing mastermind and I owe him a lot from my time working with him.

Is age of recipient a factor for open rates?

The easy answer is pretty much yes, with some variables. Age is a factor. Teens and younger 20somethings (read: college students) get out of bed later in the AM so later in their schedule is better than early in the AM to receive an email. They are typically in bed until mid morning. 1pm is a good time catch them. Now this sounds like a stereotype (and not all college kids are in bed til 10AM) just like not every baby uses a Bob-2016-Revolution-Flex stroller, but we are talking about aggregated behavior here to get the most out of a volume send.

Retirees have a different schedule. Early day is better. Afternoon not so much. Why? Sleep cycles of older people have them rise early.

What about email sends on weekends?

I recently decided to test it and what I discovered was surprising. My test audience was a large 25K list that belongs to a client who I am consulting with. — It is made up of people interested in a niche Caribbean recipe site. It consists largely of women living in the U.S., in their 30s, 40s and 50s. But there is also decent contingent of men (20%) on the list. There are Canadians and British subscribers (totalling 10%) mixed in to the list too.

(BTW, if you need some help with your email marketing strategy I have a couple of consulting slots available each week – drop us a note)

How to test send times

Here’s how I tested for optimal send times.

I segmented the list on Keap (a smart CRM and email campaign system) to test for my client when the best send times would be for this audience just so we could optimize revenue against from list.

We sent the same email to 750 different people every hour on a Thursday from 8AM to 5PM – we also added a 930AM send.

Here’s what we found in the data within 48 hours of the send:

Best times to send for highest open rates noon and 1pm however engagement rates (with the email offer) were better at 1PM and 2PM.

But the best engagement rate over all came from the 930am group even though the open rate was about 0.75% (three quarters of a percent) lower.

Actual sales from the campaign transacted as follows:

27% of all sales transactions occurred between 930am and 10am, 27% after work hours between 630pm and 11pm

However, 80 per cent the sales from the campaign came from the people who received the 930am email.

Your list behavior may vary. It’s worth doing the legwork to test the list.

11 simple ideas to generate blog content quickly without much effort

10 ways to generate quick and awesome blog content

Content marketing requires that you publish a lot of great content. And specifically you’ll need to publish content that demonstrates your (or your company’s) expertise on a particular niche topic. The idea is that you draw people who find that content useful and interesting toward your company, teach them that your are an authority on the topic, and through the process develop trust and over time a relationship, which is the foundation for a sale.

But what if you are not much of a writer? Or you find generating content ideas tedious? Or you have no time to pen the next great post? Or perhaps you don’t have a budget to hire a journalism grad or professional writer to produce content for your brand? No problem. Just use these 10 simple ideas to generate content quickly without much effort.

1. Top 5 and Top 10 lists

Go find the best resources on a topic on the internet that can be pulled into a list. 10 things you need to know about X, or 5 must have tips on how to Y. Find web sites that publish the material. Describe their tips in a few sentences. Put a link to each one and list them. Write a brief intro and BOOM!: You’ve got one awesome article ready to publish.

2. FAQs

That’s Frequently Asked Questions. Here’s an example of a great FAQ. List 10 questions that your customers ask your sales reps. Then answer them. Don’t be self promoting. ie Q: Who is your favorite plumbing company. A: Ours! More like: Q: What’s the best way to unclog a garbage disposal. A: We like this Youtube video for do it yourselfers (LINK) but give us a call and we can talk you through it or send one of our pros out to get it done for you.

3. Retop a rewrite

This is an old journalism trick that editors teach young reporters at newspapers. Find a piece of news or an article (usually from a competitor in the media business) that is of interest to your customer base. Rewrite it into a summary using your own words. Do not use the quotes – paraphrase these. BTW – No copying and pasting – that’s plagiarism. ie. Source: “Apple announces the ultra thin new iPhone 9” Rewrite: “Thin is in – but some say breakable – for the latest smartphone from Apple”

4. Write definitions

Pull together lingo or or complex terminology from your business or market and define them. Over time build a glossary of terms that is specific to your industry and publish this on your site.

5. Transcribe an interview

Call a seasoned know-it-all n your shop and record an interview on a topic her or she is expert in. Or call a industry colleague or supplier. Ask them 10 questions about an area of expertise. Transcribe the answers and clean up the Ummms and Errrs and turn it into an article with a brief introduction. ie. “Have you ever wondered how to organize a bedroom closet? We called Susan Littleton, a professional closet organizer, who provided the following tips on how to optimize space in a bedroom walk-in closest.”

6. Record an interview

Too busy to transcribe an interview? Record it on Skype and post the audio or video file on your blog and write a brief description to introduce it. Use Recorder, which is an add-on app from Skype or try Rev.com to do online transcription.

7. Photo slideshow

Explain how to do something using a slide show. Grab your phone and take step by step pictures and describe each step as captions. Niche “how to” content is hugely in demand.

8. This week in history

Go back in time five years, 10 years or further and pull up an old article or post or newspaper clipping or even a photo that marks a historic day that is of interest to your audience. Rehash the piece into a retrospective or post a series of old pictures.

9. Aggregate great tweets

Use Twitter’s search engine to find people who are experts on a topic and aggregate their tweets together. (Use a screen grab software like Snag-It) ie. Top 5 hurricane preparedness tips from smart people on Twitter!

10. Social media interviews

Speaking of Twitter post a request on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram for help with a question that everyone wants to be answered – that your audience will love. Aggregate the best answers into a single post. Credit the contributors and link to their social media accounts.

11. Directory Listings

If you have an information resource that will help people find what they need, like a directory of industry products, people or associations, or even a listing of relevant businesses you recommend – like this funeral homes near me website – then publish the resource on the web. The content may not be very sexy (like funeral homes in Canada) but if it is highly useful to people and hard to otherwise find then you will draw in people who need it and it will result in generated traffic.

Be weird: The most effective attention-getting strategy

Here’s a quick question you may not have considered:

What does a raccoon riding alligator have to do with digital marketing ? (Scroll down below the picture to reveal the answer)

Absolutely nothing.

Except for the fact that it does make a great segue into our discussion on why “weird” is a good attention-grabbing strategy in digital marketing and in content development.

It got you to read this, didn’t it?

If you want to get your people in your target market to actually stop what they are doing, and be so fascinated by what they see they can’t help but to click the link you just posted, you’ll want to try using strange, weird and wonderful headlines.

BUT – a word of caution: Read this post before you use the weird strategy to learn how to do it effectively. There are some basic but crucial rules on its execution.

The most effective attention-getting strategy: Be weird

Why Weird Works:

The weird attention-getting strategy works because it uses a human survival instinct we all have to spot things that are out of place. It is something we do because we:

a) Always want to ensure we are safe, and weird or unusual can mean danger…

b) We are curious beings by nature. Learning is how we evolve. It’s how we, as a species, get better.

If you think about it, that’s likely what had you click this article.

Humans want to understand and solve things. And, it’s easier to spot things that are out of place than things that are usual or to be expected.

This strategy is used be some of the top copywriters in the world. Like the guys who work for the National Enquirer. It is the No.5 most read publication in the world.

For those who aren’t familiar with the magazine, it’s got articles with the latest celebrity news. The stories are completely made up, but they often seem valid and real. Like this one about Oprah:

Just to be clear, I’m not going to show you how to make up stuff so you can fool people into reading your articles. Below you’ll learn how to use weird to get attention only, while remaining a credible resource with your integrity in tact.

Want more proof?

CWD recently used this tactic for a forklift dealership in and increased web traffic on the day it was posted BY MORE THAN 10X. How did we do that? On April Fools day CWD added this listing to the company web store for a hover lift truck. It was a fun joke that made warehouse manager smile and got them some major attention:

3 Rules when using the be weird attention-getting strategy:

1. Use weird in your hook or title, then follow up with facts and truths. It’s important that any content your business shares publicly provides value. When you are constantly feeding your target market information and solutions they need, you become a credible resource that your people trust.

So, if you use the be weird strategy use it only to hook your reader. It’s best used in titles and email subject lines.

Once you get their attention your job is done. Your strategy worked. Then, you have to follow up with true facts and serious information to keep your credibility in tact.

You never want your customers to feel fooled or dumb. That breaks trust and can damage your brand.

Here are some examples of how to use “weird” to hook:

North American Nutritionist’s blog: “Why eating crickets is good for your health” – Article that explains how crickets are high in protein and are eaten in many countries around the world for good health.
Tampa news blog article: “This Christmas there’s snow in Florida” – Article is about a popular new toy for kids – a mini snow cone machine – that’s selling out quickly in at local department stores for the Christmas season.
Health blog: “Why you should be happy if you’re bald” – Article reveals a research study that shows bald men live longer, also it advises people to check www.the-medical-negligence-experts.co.uk every time they face a medical negligence situation.

2. Tap into niche topics in your industry. Look at your industry and evaluate the topics that aren’t commonly discussed openly. You want them to be common enough that people deal with them, yet things that no one else is solving.

Here are some examples:

Doctor’s blog: “What your pooh says about your health”
Therapist’s blog: “Why less sex can be good for your marriage”
Online recipe: “How to make low-fat zucchini fries that taste like french fries”

3. Use odd images. Pictures that look out of place are good attention grabbers.

Jeff Johnson, an expert in lead generation suggests that people are drawn to images the suggest luxury or living a good life.

The experts at LeadPages.net have tested many landing page conversion rates using the same copy but changing out the pictures. They found that using a picture of an attractive woman smiling will increase your chances of conversion. This is true for every industry and even if your landing page content is completely unrelated to women.

See our use of the weird image tactic here:

How to design a lead capture form that converts

If people arrive at your website and you have no way to capture their information, you are doing your business a huge disservice. Site visitors are leads. They are interested in your products and/or services, which is what brought them to you in the first place.

So, take the opportunity that’s been handed to you. Capture their contact information by using a lead magnet and capture form.

What’s that? It’s a little bit of digital marketing lingo. Lets demystify it.

Have you ever been to a web site where they provide an enticing free offer (white paper, ebook, video, free course) in return for your name and email address?

That’s a lead capture form loaded with a lead magnet.

The form is where you fill out the info and is connected to a mailing list registration process.

The lead magnet is the giveaway. This gets delivered to the person after they sign up.

Typically this marketing mechanism signs the visitor up for an email list. This gives you the opportunity to communicate with the visitor on an ongoing basis. You feed them with valuable information by email that they need or find interesting and develop a relationship with them. This trust gets built over time and you become an expert. When your message lands in their inbox they are motivated to open it and as you develop this process you can expose them to products and services that match their needs.

However this all starts with the lead capture form and lead magnet, like this one (click to see what happens):

(and by the way, a “contact us” or “inquiry” form is NOT enough. You need to provide site visitors with value. If you do that, your conversion rates will be much higher.)

How to design a capture form that converts

Our most effective lead capture strategy yet:

At Cyberwalker Digital, we track and evaluate how effective our strategies are for all our clients. We look at open rates for emails, at conversion rates for online forms, at “likes” for Facebook posts and at clicked links for articles we send out. You see, marketing these days is less of a guessing game then it used to be. Using digital tools we can track almost anything.

So, when we weren’t satisfied with the conversion rate on an initial capture strategy we had put in place for one of our clients, a major forklift dealer in California, we started to think outside the box. Here’s what we came up with:

We called it Warehouse Genius. It’s a capture box that allows warehouse professionals (their target demographic) to get immediate help for any of challenges they are dealing with.

Why is it so effective?

No one else in their industry provides 48-hour support for common warehouse challenges. So, it’s a valuable free service that attracts their target demographic. We also used search engine optimization tactics so the page can be easily found.
Site visitors build a relationship of trust with the company. They are not getting sold to all the time. They can visit the site and the Warehouse Genius feature and use it as a helpful resource with no strings attached.
The forklift dealer becomes recognized as the experts they are in their industry.
When our clients receives a Warehouse Genius submission the information is highly valuable. It allows them to understand the common challenges that their target market is dealing with. They use this to generate articles on related topics. And, from time to time the inquiries amount to future business (though, that’s not the only goal).

It was so effective, we thought we’d try it out to learn if it’s a valuable strategy for any industry. So, here is our version:

If you have a question about marketing and/or digital marketing, click the button below and ask us using our Marketing Genius form.

It’s completely free. No strings attached. We’ll share what we know and help you solve a potential challenge you could be struggling with: