out of the blue

As a follow-up to last week’s “You’ve Got Mail”, I decided to do a little research on the best times of days to send out an email blast.  As expected, the results are all over the board and basically inconclusive.  After all, how can one analyze the email habits of millions of people and package it into one neat little box?  Obviously it can’t be done.  What you can do, however, is read up on the many theories of best times of day to email people.  A good start:  New Insights on Time of Day for Email 

You can also check out a few of my theories.

*Avoid Monday morning emails:  Monday morning emails are probably not a good idea.  I know what I do on Monday morning:  Look at all the junk in my email box and delete without even opening.  After a weekend of just sitting there, it is safe to assume that your email is going to get pushed to the trash if it is surrounded by personal emails.

*Avoid lunchtime emails:  Around lunchtime, people want to fool around on Facebook for their 30 minute break or something else of the sort.  The last thing they want to do is be solicited when they’re not getting paid for it!  The exception, however, is if you are soliciting a product/service that hits them more on a personal level that they would want to research on their lunchbreak.

*I like mid-afternoon emails:  It depends on the day, but I personally enjoy reading through even my junk mail around three or fourish.  This, for me, is the time of day when things begin to wind down and I have a little more free time to check out the unnecessary.

Of course, these are all just theories.  Feel free to leave your own comments/thoughts below.  Whatever time of day or day of the week you decide to send your email blast on, just remember it does matter!