Timing is everything

In the world of digital marketing and indeed advertising, timing is everything.

I was recently getting back into audiobooks, I mean who does not want to have a book read to them while doing the dishes? Making you feel like the most productive human being on the planet.

It was shortly after this I sat down on the sofa and scrolled through YouTube, looking for a few book recommendations, when I was hit with a few adverts for Audible.

It was not just a relevant ad for me but was at the perfect time when I was looking to read more audiobooks.

Lessons from Email Marketing

A successful email marketing campaign is not only down to relevance and honesty, but timing as well. You may be targeting the right audience, providing them with a clear and direct message, but timing plays a key role here.

"Let’s take a look at each weekday to get an idea of which times have the highest open rates. Overall, most opens take place between 10-12AM (based on the subscriber’s time zone).

Many industry experts have hailed these times as a prime sending window, as your subscribers have settled into their day, but are not yet too focused on their daily tasks to ignore their inboxes. The data also shows higher open rates around 5-6PM."

Mailerlite

After sending hundreds of marketing emails over the last few years, timing plays one of the biggest parts in how successful it will be. You send it too late, people will ignore it and it will get pushed further back in their inbox. Send it on a wrong day, and those open rates plummet.

This will vary depending on your industry and who your audience is, but you should always consider what time works best for your audience.

There is sadly no real trick I am aware of, for getting this right. What you can do is trial and error, research, and when you can speak to your audience.

Lessons from Social Media

Let me ask you a question, what times of the day do you usually visit a social media platform?

For me, it is usually around 1 pm at lunch, and again late in the evening around 9:30 pm. This might be different from what you answered above, but better understanding your audience, and posting around the times when they are most active, will help increase your engagement.

"This brings us to the bad news: it’s hard to agree on a single standard “best time to post on social media.” Everyone and their uncle has done a study on industry benchmarks—but the real source of truth always comes back to your own data on your own followers.

Universal best times to post like the ones we found in our research above are best used as starting points for new accounts who haven’t built an audience yet and so don’t have anyone to test on."

Hootsuite, you can read their full post here.

Sprout Social, a social media scheduling platform shared an interesting blog post around the best times to post on social media, and although this may differ for your audience it provides interesting insight.

“Similar to Instagram’s parent company Facebook, the top times to post on Instagram expanded in 2020 compared to previous years. Midday engagement during weekdays became even denser with top times throughout the 11 a.m.–2 p.m. range, and evenings and weekend times showed increased opportunities for engagement.”

Sprout Social

Although it can be difficult to get right every time, getting your audience’s attention at just the right time along with an honest and clear message, is the beginnings of a successful marketing recipe.

Can you remember the last time when you received a marketing message at just the right time? If so share your examples below, I would love to hear them!