What day and what time should I be sending my email newsletter? This is a question that crops up all time. The best time and day to send your email newsletters will be reflective of the industry you are in and your target market.

If you are unsure of the best day and time to send your email newsletter, I suggest you test and see what results you get at different times and on different days. That said, here are some basic guidelines, based on my experience and industry knowledge, for you to consider:

Best Days for Business Emails

The best time to send business-related emails is generally mid week: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 10am and 2pm.

Mondays and Fridays are considered the worst days. Mondays, particularly Monday mornings, are bad because people hate arriving at work to a full inbox (many people just hate to arrive at work, putting them in a bad mood to start with!). Fridays are not good because people are looking forward to, and planning, their weekends, so they tend to avoid taking on information that will distract them.

Retail, Travel or Personal Emails

Retail, travel and personal emails have different rules to business emails. If your market is the end consumer then it’s likely you may get better results on a weekend or evening when people are more relaxed and more likely to read a retail offer or a travel promotion email. Work emails are generally ignored at this time because “it’s the weekend”.

There are exceptions to these guidelines, so find the time and day that best suits the majority of your recipients.

Opening an email is a decision that is made in a very short time - a matter of seconds (or sometimes even less). Think about your own email habits, and the thoughts that go through your mind as you go through your over-crowded inbox each day.

To improve your open rates and have more of your newsletter recipients open your email you will need to give thought as to how you can get their attention and get them to want to open emails from you!

There are a few clues you and every email user use to determine the value of opening an email:

• Who is the email from?
• What has been my experience of emails from this person in the past?
• What is the email subject?
• How many other emails do I have to deal with?

And it pretty much happens in that order. The end result is a simple decision with three options:

1. Open the email and read it
2. Delete the email
3. Ignore the email (and possibly return to it later)

The decision really comes down to a trade-off between time and expected value. If the recipient expects to get some benefit from opening the email, they will most likely open it. If they expect to get little benefit from opening it, they will delete it or ignore it. If they ignore it, they may or may not come back to it, and the same decision making process is repeated.

When you are creating your Email Campaign or Newsletter consider all of the above and do your utmost to ensure your emails have high value for your readers. You should aim to send a newsletter that your subscribers want to read as soon as they see it hit their inbox!!!!

Open Rates are the first vital clue to the health of your Email Marketing Campaigns. A high open rate indicates that you are consistently providing your subscriber list with valuable and useful promotions and information. A low open rate tells you that there is work to be done on your strategy and execution.

So what is a high open rate?

I often have new clients who are surprised when their email newsletter is not opened by all of the recipients. If you have reacted this way then I assure you that you should not be dissapointed as this is normal. There are many factors involved and believe me, no one gets their emails 100% opened unless they are sending to a very select small list.

Surveys taken across the email marketing industry show that an open rate anywhere between 30% and 50% can be considered to be an excellent achievement.

Recent Australian research shows that average open rate across all industries and all size sends is around 22%. Smaller and segmented sends tended to show a higher open rates than large volumne sends.

Remember, that your audience is full of busy people who are being constantly bombarded with advertising and marketing messages. Email is a quick and easy form of communication, but it is also quick and easy to ignore and/or dispose of messages that aren’t deemed urgent or important.

You will never get everyone to open your emails. Your objective should be to improve your existing open rate steadily over time. Read part 2 of this article on Improving Email Open Rates.

I received an email today which annoyed me and is a perfect example of what an Email Marketer should not do! Unless they want to be mistaken as a Spammer of course!

The email was from a local publication and they were kindly letting me know that I might be interested in advertising in an up and coming special feature that they are running. How very kind of them, giving me the opportunity to pay them to put an advertisement in their publication!

This was the first ever email I have received from this contact and yet there was no introduction and no indication of how we met or how I came to be on the ‘list’.

This Email Marketer (or spammer?) has committed multiple sins which I’ll outline here.

• The email was sent with the sole purpose of trying to sell advertising to me - there was nothing contained within that was valuable or even helpful to me. They forgot the whole WIIFM (Whats In It For Me) formula. Perhaps they thought that offering me the chance to pay them for advertising in their publication was enough?
• I was included as a contact in the CC field so I could also see the entire list of contacts who received the email. This is a breach of my own and every other contact on that lists privacy. These days people value their email addresses and do not give them out to just anybody so who gave this emailer the right to give out this email database to every recipient on the list?
• How did I come to be on this list anyway? I have a feeling they got my contact details from a networking event or a members list of a local networking group. What makes it worse is because they have not acknowledged how I came to be on their list. Annoying to say the least…
• There is no unsubscribe link or instructions on their email so they have officially breached spam compliance laws. Making it impossible for recipients to unsubscribe also means increasing chances of getting reported as spam to ISPs and authorities.

I do find it surprising that people continue to partake in this type of Email Marketing as it will never work, except to alienate potential customers and get deleted. Anyways the above is just a bit of a rant from me on what not to do if you respect your recipients and wish to employ email marketing successfully.

I would love to hear about any dismal efforts at email marketing that have arrived in your email inbox lately…

To grow your business using email marketing you should aim to have an email address for every customer that you work with.  You should also have a system to gather email addresses from prospects and most definately from website visitors. Work on growing your email list all the time and make it a priority!

Your database (list of prospects and clients) is very important. You want to keep in touch with these people and build a relationship over time so that they come to KNOW, LIKE and TRUST you enough to spend money with you!

Entice website visitors and prospects to leave their email address by offering a free gift, a discount or a newsletter - something that will be of value to them. This is one of the ways I build my own list; by offering my free report called Six Online Marketing Strategies for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs as a thank you for signing up for my Online Marketing Newsletter - check out the pitch at www.webchameleon.com.au.

Don’t be afraid of giving information away for free. Just remember that these days just about any information can be found on the internet for free, so in most cases all you are doing is ensuring that your target market gets the information from you and joins your list so that you can keep in touch with them over time.

Once a customer is on your mailing list, they’re a prospect (and hopefully a new customer) for life!

Some easy ways to build your list include:

• Ask at every opportunity - when on the phone or when meeting with a prospect ask if they would like to receive your email communications. I suggest you design a 1 sentence request that you practice and refine and use time and again when asking for email addresses. If you ask with hesitancy and without acknowledging what exactly they will be receiving its likely they will not supply their address.

• Capture Form on website - this is an essential factor for your website to include a sign up form to encourage visitors to your website to sign up for your newsletter or email offers. Again, make sure you include a good reason why and make it inviting and easy for them to sign up.

• At Networking events - I actually think it can often be easier to get new people that you meet to agree to receive your email communications than it can be to try to sell your product or services on first meeting.

• Send to Friend - ask your existing recipients to forward your emails to others that they feel may be interested.

There are in fact hundreds of ways you could grow your list, get creative but mostly just get into the rhythm of asking!

Email Marketing is a very effective marketing medium. It allows you to keep in touch with prospects and clients, build trust & credibility, and to promote your products and services. The greatest benefit is email marketing costs far less than any other marketing medium.

Because of the low costs, some users have developed a habit of not putting in the same time & effort as TV, Newspaper or Radio campaigns. The most effective campaigns require time and effort to plan and manage them successfully. Anything less will see your emails sent to the delete folder in no time.

Consider these powerful seven habits:

1. GET PERMISSION: Ensure that you are abiding by Australian and International Spam Compliance Regulations. Send only to Only send to people who you have an existing clients orrel prospects relationship with or who have consented to receiving your emails. Ensure that you are abiding by Australian and International Spam Compliance Regulations which is also best practice.

2. GIVE GOOD CONTENT: Consider your newsletter as a gift to your prospects & clients. Think about what your target market are always asking youwant to know. What would they consider valuable? you because this is your expertise and would be the type of information your recipients are likely to consider valuable.

3. BUIILD TRUST: Give your Email Campaigns and Newsletters a personal touch, provide valuable content, and ensure regular contact with your recipients.

4. PROMOTE: Whilst giving is the priority, it’s perfectly ok to also include promotions and a call to action for your products &/or services. You will see your business increase if you do this well.

5. VIRAL MARKETING: Ask your recipients to pass your email on to anyone that they think may be interested. Include an easy way to do this such as a Send to Friend link.

6. GROW YOUR LIST: Include a subscription form on your website and make sure it is easily visible and easy to subscribe. AskAlso ask all new and existing customers clients and prospects if they would like to receive your newsletter, collect their email address and add them to your list immediately.

7. KEEP A CLEAN LIST: Include unsubscribe functionality in all of your emails and if you are not using an automated system to manage this then act on all unsubscribe requests immediately. Manage and clean your list of bounced emails regularly.Manage any failed emails to maintain the integrity of your list.

Business growth is guaranteed if you serve your clients personal and business needs. Email Marketing allows you to compete and prosper no matter what size your business. Take advantage of Email Marketing and remember that you don’t need to be a computer nerd to manage your own email marketing system.

 Check out my own Email Service - Chameleon Mail - free 30 day trial available

Done properly you can expect your email marketing to increase sales, increase your brand recognition and build customer loyalty. What you don’t want is for your emails to be considered spam - displeasing your recipients as well as breaking, Australian regulations.

This article primarily relates to Australian law, however similar restrictions are in place with the Can-Spam Act in the USA and other countries throughout the world. Spam regulations are in place to protect people from receiving junk email.

As a business owner using email marketing you should be following these guidelines not only because they are legal requirements but simply because they are best practise and will give you better results with your email marketing activities.

So what’s Email Marketing? And when is it Spam?

Email Marketing managed correctly is not spam. Although many people confuse the two, they are actually very different. Email Marketing is permission based - meaning that the recipient has volunteered (opted-in) to receive e-newsletters and other email promotions from an organization. The user can opt-out (unsubscribe) at any time using the unsubscribe information available within every email communication.

Spam, however is unsolicited email. Spam is the common term for electronic ‘junk mail’ - unwanted commercial electronic messages. Spammers gather their email addresses from a variety of sources without the knowledge of the recipient. Although spam may offer an unsubscribe facility, they are often not functional or will mean the recipient receives even more unsolicited emails. Spamming is highly unethical and we all hate to receive it.

To ensure you comply with the Spam Act, you should consider the following three steps. To ensure you comply with the Spam Act, you should consider the following three steps. These steps are based on Australian Spam Compliance, however they are also considered best practice and similar guidelines exist in the USA.

Step 1 - Consent Your commercial messages should only be sent when you have consent. This may be express consent from the person you wish to contact - a direct indication that it is okay to send the message, or messages of that nature. It is also possible to infer consent based on a business or other relationship with the person, and their conduct.

Step 2 - Identify Your commercial messages should always contain clear and accurate identification of who is responsible for sending the message, and how they can be contacted. It is important for people to know who is contacting them, and how they can get in touch in return. This will generally be the organisation that authorises the sending of the message, rather than the name of the person who actually hits the “send” button.

Step 3 - Unsubscribe Your commercial messages should contain an unsubscribe facility, allowing people to indicate that such messages should not be sent to them in future. All commercial electronic messages must contain a functional unsubscribe facility, allowing people to opt-out from receiving future messages. Such a request must be honoured.

The Australian Spam Act specifies that the person’s consent has been withdrawn within five working days from the date that the unsubscribe request was sent (in the case of electronic unsubscribe messages) or delivered (in the case of unsubscribe messages sent by post or other means).

Further information on the Australian Spam Guidelines: Australia’s anti-spam legislation was introduced in 2003 in response to concerns about the impact of spam on the effectiveness of electronic communication and the costs imposed on end-users. To view the full guidelines visit: http://www.dbcde.gov.au/communications_and_technology/policy_and_legislation/spam

Email marketing is the most immediate, flexible and cost effective marketing tool available in business today. Done well, email marketing is a strategic process that can and will:

• Increase your sales
• Reduce your marketing costs
• Build customer loyalty
• Shorten your sales cycle
• Generate more referrals
• Save time by automating your marketing

Whatever your business - your customers are your greatest asset!

The ability to effectively communicate, grow and build relationships with your customers is vital to the success of your business. Email Marketing is the perfect solution to acquiring, building and maintaining profitable lifetime relationships with your customers.

It gives you the power to pro-actively send your message to your clients, web visitors and prospects instantly without passively waiting for them to contact you or to re-visit your website.

To grow your business using email marketing you should aim to have an email address for every customer and gather those of prospects and website visitors as well. Entice website visitors and prospects to leave their email address by offering a free gift, a discount or a newsletter - something that will be of value to them. If they have arrived at your website they have already shown interest so with some clever thinking this should be an easy process.

Ensure your email communications are professional, interesting and of value to the recipients. Don’t waste the opportunity to build lifetime customers by sending out rubbish. Some possible email communications could include newsletters, special offers, last minute deals, product information and updates, staff newsletters, invitations, after sales emails and personal greetings.

Once you start building your email database you’ll need to consider your options for administering campaigns. Successful email marketing is more than setting up a distribution list in Outlook and sending a broadcast email to all your contacts. Among other things you’ll want to ensure your compliance with legal requirements for commercial email messages. If email marketing is to be a serious Marketing tool for your business it is worth investing in specialized tools or using a professional service provider.

Finally, get creative and have some fun coming up with promotion and communication ideas. If you have some long term loyal customers ask them what they’d like to receive and take a look at what other businesses are sending their clients. You may just find you can offer something far superior and by using email you can do it a fraction of the cost of other advertising mediums.