Did You Know?

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Did you know that Tuesday is the most popular day to send promotional and commercial email?

In fact, it’s the day that stands out from any other amongst 1Shoppingcart.com merchants, but why? 

We dug into these stats so we could bring you an answer and after talking to our merchants and a few successful online marketers, this is what we were able to find…

Monday is the single worst day of the week to send out promotional emails (followed closely by Saturday and Sunday). There are a few reasons, but the big two are:

1. Most people are still in “weekend mode”.
2. Everyone is eager to see the end of the “Monday Morning Mailbox Cleanup” – the big job of deleting three days worth of built-up email every Monday morning!

These two factors alone account for most of the deleted commercial email every week, making Monday a day to avoid at any cost (followed closely by Saturday and Sunday!)

Friday is the next worse day to send promotional or commercial email to your mailing lists.

Similarly to Monday, ‘weekend mode’ is the primary factor here. By noon on a Friday, most people are thinking about rest, relaxation, spending time with their families and whatever it is they hope to accomplish over the weekend. This puts your email at risk of being deleted out of hand, or ignored completely until after the weekend, only to then become victim to the Monday Morning Mailbox Cleanup!

Wednesday is starting to look up for your email. But the truth is, by Wednesday, many people are in ‘countdown mode,’ already reserving a special spot in their thought process for the coming weekend.

And while the same thing also applies to Thursdays, there is an additional mark against sending your mail on ‘Hump Day’… it’s the same reason why Wednesday has its own pet name, it’s the only point in the week when ‘Last Weekend’ is just as far away as ‘Next Weekend’. It turns out that, at least after Monday, most people find Wednesday the most mind-numbing, longest, and hardest day to endure.

And no matter whom you ask, they’ll tell you this isn’t the frame of mind you want your prospects in when they read your email.

Thursday is always a funny day to send email. Second only to Tuesday, there are a lot of factors that can determine how well mail sent on this day is received.

First of all, most people are in a better mood than they were on Wednesday, there’s only 1 day left till the weekend after all! So they will automatically be more receptive. Unfortunately, it is not a perfect day to send your email since people are thinking about the weekend by now… trying to will it to come sooner than it should.

And as if that weren’t enough, there is a definite trend in our stats that show Thursdays to be significantly more successful during the winter than they are in the summer months. While I couldn’t find a satisfactory answer as to why this is, I have to assume the nice summer weather is to blame.

After all, more people are on vacation and a lot of people take Fridays off so they can enjoy a long weekend (therefore Thursday becomes a Friday in so far as being a bad day to send out any commercial email).

And then there was Tuesday…

By Tuesday most of the Monday blues have been shaken off, and while people are back in Business mode by now, there’s still a lingering glow from the previous weekend to keep them happy.

Following the Monday Morning Mailbox Cleanup, there’s now a reasonable amount of email to go through on Tuesday morning, so it is more likely that yours will be read.

And if you want social proof listen to this:

Whenever 1ShoppingCart sets a new record for the amount of email we send on a daily basis, it’s a Tuesday!