Why Advice on Marketing Message Timing is Meaningless

I feel like every day I see at least one article or post offering advice on when you should tweet this or email that and they all seem to be contradictory. Some say it’s better to post earlier in the day on a particular platform, while others will advocate later in the day for that same platform. Some say you should post just before the hour, others will say just after or mid-hour is better. Some studies swear by late-night and weekend posting to get people during their down-time while others say you should stick to business hours. If you tried to follow all of this advice you’d probably end up spending innumerable hours posting all day every day and annoying the crap out of your audience!

So what’s the right advice when it comes to social media management? Well, all of it! 

The reality is that for each business, the “right” time to send emails, publish content, and push social media posts is completely unique. This is why it’s so important to test everything that you do to see what your audience responds best to over time. Here are some really important things to keep in mind when planning when to send various marketing messages:

• The “right” time can vary from day to day, week to week, and month to month so don’t stress over it too much. You can always recycle content at a later date and try again if the result isn’t what you were hoping for. 
  
• You’ll find that different channels have sweet spots, so don’t be afraid to send messages at different times via different platforms. You may find that one time works really effectively on one channel and is a total dud on another.
  
• Different marketing goals may have require sending content at different times. When testing ensure that you’re comparing apples to apples to avoid going in circles.
  
• Sending content at the “right” time doesn’t guarantee you a win, which means that sending content at the “wrong” time doesn’t guarantee a fail. 
  

Let me give you an example of some of these principles at work... When it comes to my email various inboxes I would say I probably receive 10% of my daily emails overnight (between midnight and 6 am) when I’m asleep, 70% of email during regular business hours and the last 20% sprinkled into the gaps in between. Which do you think I appreciate and interact with the most? Obviously most companies must assume that emails during business hours are the most effective – that’s why I get so many during that time. But in reality, I make a habit every morning of waking up and lying in bed reading emails before anyone else is up. I look forward to finding out which emails I’ve gotten overnight and am far more likely to read those in depth or click-through on the links inside than I am on any of the emails that pour in during the day while I’m working because I’m too distracted to spend much time looking at those at all. I know that this behavior probably isn’t typical, which means that when marketers analyze their aggregated email engagement metrics, my behavior probably isn’t aligned with the majority. However my interaction with these emails is certainly a win for those marketers!  

Kate Pierce is the owner of LionShark Digital Marketing LLC, a West Michigan internet marketing company. Her areas of expertise include Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Consulting for small businesses, Copywriting and Local Online Marketing. She lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband and enjoys cooking, watching sports and spending time outdoors. Like a true digital marketing expert (i.e. geek), she loves talking about marketing theory and SEM trends… so don’t say you weren’t warned!