It's been said that your email newsletter should be issued at a predictable frequency - i.e. if you have a weekly e-newsletter, it should be sent the same day every week; if it's monthly, then close to the same time every month. This helps your readers know when to expect it, and hopefully sparks some anticipation of its arrival. But, if your email campaign isn't a regularly scheduled newsletter, weekends can also be a good time for email marketing.

Yes, there are some other ways you can experiment with timing. For example, this weekend I was doing a bit of work on Sunday evening. I checked my email and noticed that one of the new messages in my work inbox had been sent that very evening. A B-to-B email sent on a Sunday! Now, most B-to-B email best practices will tell you to send your email during the work week, with Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday being especially favored days. Since businesses typically operate Monday through Friday, sending an email on a Saturday or Sunday is generally never recommended.

Sounds reasonable, but let's take a step back for a minute and think about it. If you send your email on Sunday and I don't happen to check my email then, I'll still see it first thing Monday morning. But, if I do happen to be online checking email over the weekend, because I'm an especially dedicated employee, your email won’t appear in the deluge of email I have to read on Monday morning. It might be the only new message I have! Maybe I need a little break from whatever project I'm working on and I will read your email. Maybe a Sunday email will actually get more attention, not less, because I may have more time to myself to read it.

Of the many things that you can and should test in an email campaign, try sending a few of your emails (but not necessarily your regular e-newsletter if you’ve already established a set day for that) on the weekend. Do a few like this and see how much the open and click-through rates differ. You might just find that going against the status quo is actually a good idea.

###

Related Resources:

• Subscribe to Inside Lyris HQ our monthly online-marketing newsletter.
• Download free online-marketing guides, tools and webinars in the Lyris Online-Marketing Resource Center.