As a marketer, you know that timing is everything. You also know that there are specific times when it’s best to send out an email campaign and others when it might be a bad idea. Knowing how and when to use email marketing can be tricky. One of the best tools out there to organize your email marketing is the HubSpot suite. In this article, we’ll talk about the best and worst times to send out an email campaign with HubSpot and Exact Target and how you can make the best of each moment.
Worst Times to Send Email Marketing
It’s almost certain that you’ve heard of the death drop. This is the technique where someone emails you directly after your marketing message has been delivered (aka “triggered”). The goal is to get you to take further action as soon as you’ve heard the message, so the unsubscribe rate is low and you’ve got someone on the other end of the communication channel.
Odds are, you’ll never want to use the death drop. Why? It works really well in theory, but in practice, it’s more complicated than it seems. Here’s why.
- A low opt-in rate
- Pricing that’s too good to be true
- Sending emails at the wrong time
- The “unsubscribe” button becoming overused
Let’s take a closer look at each scenario.
Scenario One: Low Opt-in Rate
If you set up your email campaign a few weeks ago and you’ve got a low opt-in rate, you might as well stop there. You’ve got a problem, and you need to fix it as soon as possible. The longer you leave it, the worse the problem will become.
Why is the opt-in rate so important? It shows you how engaged your audience is with your product or service and gives you an idea of whether or not you’ll be able to successfully promote it. If you have a low opt-in rate, you’re probably not engaging your audience enough and you’ll struggle to promote your product or service successfully.
You want to get in touch with your customers or potential customers as soon as possible so they remember your product or service and come back for more. If their experience with your product or service is positive, they’re more likely to share it with others. This is important for expanding your reach and growing your business.
By understanding when your target audience is the most and least receptive to your offers, you’ll be able to properly time your emails. If you send out a bulk email now and your target audience isn’t engaged, they’ll simply delete it without thinking twice. However, if you send out a few carefully-placed emails at the right time, you’ll be able to create a lasting impression and get the maximum possible return on your investment.
Scenario Two: Pricing That’s Too Good To Be True
Pricing is always a tricky subject, and if you do it right, you’ll have everyone fooled. You want to price your product or service so that it seems too good to be true, but not so good that it’ll break the bank. When done right, nobody will believe that you’ve got a limited supply and are willing to sell it at a discounted price, at least not until they actually try to buy it. But, if you underprice it and it turns out that there is actually no discount, you’ll have a dissatisfied customer who isn’t going to be happy no matter what.
Why is pricing important? It affects your target audience’s perception of your product or service and, ultimately, their decision to buy it. If you don’t want to get screwed over by someone who thinks your product is overpriced, you’ll have to put a fair price on it. You’ll also need to ensure that you’ve actually got the product or service in limited quantities. It would be best to find out the average price of the product in question and then price your product or service accordingly. Don’t be afraid to ask your customers for their opinion on prices as well. After all, it’s not your job to know what’s fair; it’s your job to make sure that your customers are satisfied.
Some businesses price their products or services according to how much money they’re making and how much profit they expect to make. However, there is a better way. You can use the Law of Supply and Demand to your advantage. Take a look at MoviePass. MoviePass sets a price that is relatively low, but it covers all of the cost of movie tickets. In exchange for this low price, they collect a lot of data about their customers. Through this, they are able to predict how much money they’ll make per customer and how much it’ll cost them to serve one customer. This pricing strategy makes perfect sense because it is based on revenue and expenses.
If you want to price your product or service according to how much it’ll cost you to serve one customer, you’ll need to determine how much it costs you to acquire a new customer. This is where you’ll need to look into the cost of acquiring a new customer, which is usually the most expensive part of operating an email marketing campaign. The sooner you can determine this number, the better. It’s also a good idea to look into the cost of keeping a customer. Once you know this number, you can determine how much money you’re likely to make from a customer and how much it’ll cost you to serve that customer. This pricing strategy can help you find the sweet spot where you generate enough revenue to justify your cost of operation while not breaking the bank. Just make sure that you don’t oversell yourself by under-pricing it.
Scenario Three: Sending Emails At the Wrong Time
There is a specific time where it’s best to send out emails and another time where it might not be the best idea. Just like with most things in life, there is an optimum time for sending out each type of email message. To understand when the right time is, you’ll need to consider a few things. First, check the analytics for your email marketing campaign. This will tell you how effective your emails were and when it’s best to send out a new one.
For example, suppose that you have an email marketing campaign that gets 150,000 hits per month. You’ll know, based on this, that it’s best to send out a follow-up email within the first few days after someone submits their contact information. After that, you might want to consider taking a break before you send out a new email message. Why? It takes at least two weeks for the organic reach of an email to kick in, and after that, it takes time for the message to really resonate with your audience.
Let’s look at some other examples. If you’re running a sales funnel and you’ve determined that the best time to send out a sales email is after someone makes a purchase, you’ll want to ensure that you wait at least two weeks after the purchase before you send out the email. Why two weeks? It takes that long for the new customer to become familiar with the products or services and for them to start seeing results. So, it’s not immediately beneficial. This is also the case for most other types of email messages, especially marketing emails where you’re trying to get people to take an action.
If you want to send out a welcome email to a new customer or subscriber, you may want to consider waiting for at least a few days after they’ve subscribed to your email list before you send it out. This gives you time to determine whether or not they’re actually going to use your product or service and, if so, whether or not you should continue sending them emails. Sometimes it’s best to simply take a break and then send out the welcome email a little later. This ensures that you’re not rushing it and that you’ve given the person who’s subscribed time to explore your website and get a feel for your product or service before they’re swamped with email.
On the flip side, if you’re trying to generate a lot of excitement about a new product or service and you want to send out an initial marketing email as soon as possible, you can do so. However, in this case, it might not be the best idea. To avoid losing subscribers, you may want to consider sending out a series of short, informative emails that build excitement about your product or service and then introduce it gradually. For example, you can send out a quick email explaining what your product is and why it’s different from other products on the market and then follow it up with a few more similar emails. In this way, you aren’t overwhelming your audience with too much information and likely getting a lot of mindshare.