When's the best time to send an email?

After sending email campaigns for a long time I've tried loads of times and days. There are a few implied rules that seem to make sense but tend not to have any scientific backing.

For example a common thought is that sending an email campaign on a Monday is a bad idea. The thought is that after a weekend in boxes are full and most of its contents if not deemed immediately important are deleted.

Saturday is thought to be a good day if you have a high-powered list. The thought is that they will be checking their emails over the weekend without resorting to their secretary.

I'm about to send an email campaign to my newsletter list at Global Lingo. And I'm planning on Tuesday at around 11am. Seems like a good time to me.

Yesterday I had a thought though as I was walking in the park checking my Blackberry. And it dawned on me that there now is no perfect time. Virtually no one waits until they return to the office to check their emails. Almost every one has a way to check at any time of day or night.

So today I still plan to send my email at 11am, but next time I'll test the time of day and see what the results are. So to finish this off there is no perfect time for all emails just the perfect time for yours. And the only way you'll ever know is to test and test and test.

Good Luck

Why long is better than short

In a world of sound bites where everything needs to be in short easily remembered sound bites, there's a common thought that everything needs to be short. Weather that's copy on a website, a TV series, a song, book, film, take your pick.

But all this flies in the face of the facts. Long things when engaging, interesting, artistic, of merit and relevant are pretty much always more appreciated over time, where as sound bites are just that and are quickly forgotten, there are notable exceptions, but most of those actually re-enforce the rule of long because they are made to entice you into the main long element.

I'm listening to The Stone Roses re-mastered on Spotify at the moment and one of my favourite tracks is Fools Gold, it's also a firm favourite of most Stone Roses fans. At 9.52 minutes for some people it's over long, but for a fan who's head starts bobbing from the opening notes it's just not long enough! In a similar vein Stairway to Heaven and Bohemian Rhapsody are stupidly long but and untouchable to their fans. Can you say that about 3 minutes of Lady GaGa?

Same applies to loads of other things which delight and amaze people, you try telling a fan of Lord of the Rings the films and books are too long and difficult. Try saying that watching 24 takes too much time!

In sport even. The World Snooker Championships takes two weeks to complete with some sessions going on into the middle of the next morning. The Ashes and test cricket take 5 days to play one game which may then end in a draw. American Football takes forever to finish as does baseball.

In art, is the Sistine Chapel ceiling too big and detailed? Jackson Pollock paintings too long?

In advertising, why do you think some infomercials are a whole 3 minutes long? And that long engaging copy in direct mail letters works better than short copy? Because it tells a story which is interesting and captivating to the customers who are disposed to buy the products. It's not trying to convince every viewer to buy, how could it? No it works hard on the relevant people and converts them.

What all these have in common is a craftsmanship which takes a long time to perfect, it's then perfectly articulated which makes it enduring, relevant and in a way addictive.

So when some one says that things need to be short because people don't have the attention span then they're clearly looking at the population in general. Fine if you want a quick hit and disappear.

But if you want to stay around for a long time better make things well crafted, interesting, relevant and if its needed long.

Grattan announces job cuts in the UK

It's a sad day today as Grattan the giant of the British mail order companies announces job cuts.

Especially sad for me because I used to work in the Bradford office on the customer retention team. Grattan is an amazing place for anyone in marketing to hotbed their skills. You learn so much at such a quick pace a, because you have to and b, because there is an enormous wealth of skill and knowledge in the teams over there.

Thinking back there are people working at Grattan who had been there 30 years when I left around 4 years ago.

And maybe that is there downfall as well as their strength. Grattan and the associated brands, Freemans, Look Again etc where jut too big a ship to turn around.

It's odd when you think about it because mail order is the way that business is now going. Every company with a website takes orders online and delivers direct to your door just like Grattan has for over 100 odd years.

The problem is that their model for mail order, or the "Club Book" as it was know on my street when I was little, is based on people not being able to get credit. So one person in the area would be the agent for the Club Book and customers would pay that person in small weekly installments. The agent in return gets a commission.

All was well for Grattan until the advent of the credit card, then suddenly there's no need to get credit form the agent anymore.

This did so much damage to the traditional mail order companies like Grattan because their entire business model was built on having this credit system which they handled.

Even more of an irony now is that due to the credit crunch, the Grattan model should in theory be perfect again as people can't get the credit they could in the recent boom.

Unfortunately it would seem its too late for Grattan and that's a big shame.

David Ogilvy speaks from the past about the future

I just found this video of a film David Ogilvy sent to a conference years ago. The film is very old which adds a huge amount of gravitas to the message. What Ogilvy, the pioneer of Direct Marketing says is still true today, even more so with the dawn of the Internet.

If your marketing is meant to sell products then forget clever creative, flowery copy, cryptic text. Sell the product or service, ask for the response - making it easy to do so. Measuring marketing spend has never been easier than with the Internet, even more so than it is with Direct Mail. Testing is quicker and easier and the results can be in almost instantly.

Take the time to watch David Ogilvy as he talks to you from the past and see how you can apply this to how you are marketing today.

Law of decrecesing returns on Email Marketing

When I did my Direct Marketing Diploma there was a rule of decreasing returns which went along the lines of this:

Once you've mailed a file return to the same file again but exclude people who responded the first time. This rule generates more sales. You can keep doing this at least 10 times so that our list gets smaller and smaller but your only working on people who don't buy or respond.

I've been trying this same rule with email marketing. Using Campaign Monitor you can segment any list and include only those people who didn't open the initial email or click on a link etc. I opted for the didn't open as I figured that didn't click a link was a bit too risky and would produce a barrage of abuse and spam complaints.

I re-emailed about a week after the initial offer. The strange thing is that the law seems to be broken at least for these campaigns.

There are two options

1. My campaign was crap (very likely)
2. The rule doesn't work for email

I've seen independent result for this on a traditional paper based mailing. I've even done it myself and had a lot of success. But for some reason it's not worked with email.

If anyone has any different experiences I'd love to hear them as I'm sure this should work.