The best time to send cold emails could be from 9 AM to 3 PM, especially during weekdays. A 2023 Research Report from HubSpot confirms that and also reveals that those findings are consistent with those of 2022.
But some online sources highlight specific weekdays, indicating that those are the best times to send cold emails. On the other hand, others point out specific time periods during which sending cold emails could do “wonders”.
But what exactly is the best time for a business to send an email? It’s actually a mix of both strategies - picking out the most suitable days and then scheduling emails for specific times during those days.
In this article, we’ll take a look at:
By the end of this article, you will understand the critical factors that influence the success of cold emails, including the most effective times to send them to boost your email engagement and open rates significantly.
Let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
It is best to start with understanding what a cold email is. It refers to an unsolicited message that a recipient receives without prior contact. It is similar to those random “discount coupons” and “special offers” emails that usually appear in the Social and Promotional inboxes.
But unlike spam, cold emails are targeted and usually contain personalized content specific to the target audience. Using cold emails is a great outreach and market strategy that helps businesses attract potential clients to sell products and services.
In fact, HubSpot’s State of Sales Report confirmed that emails were the third-most effective method for cold outreach and selling. One way to make sure cold emailing is effective is to buy verified email lists to target active and valid email owners.
Cold emails are a relatively simple process to understand - despite involving a ton of technicalities that can make or break an email campaign. The cold emails target prospects - i.e., the leads most likely to turn into paying customers because they showed higher interest in the brand’s offerings.
The email targets such recipients through personalized content and interactive messages that showcase the brand more engagingly. A typical cold email expert focuses on the following aspects when crafting one:
Once they finalize these details, they choose the best time to send out cold emails to potentially boost open rates and responses.
Brian Dean from Backlinko confirms that message personalization can increase click-through rates to over 28.5%. Moreover, he also shared that the best time to send emails for B2C and B2B emails is between 9 AM and 12 PM.
Timing of the cold email is perhaps the most critical component of an outreach or marketing strategy. For example, sending 1,000 cold emails to potential leads at 3 AM isn’t likely to lead to a reasonable open rate.
And on weekend nights, there’s even less chance of cold business or marketing emails getting a response. In fact, Backlinko said that “Saturdays” are the worst day to send outreach emails.
However, sending 1,000 cold emails during the weekdays, when professionals are actively using communication channels like emails could change that. Again, Backlinko also indicated that “Wednesdays” could be the best days to send outreach emails.
Overall, weekdays count as the “best” days to send outreach and marketing emails. The time period to do that is anywhere between 9 AM to 3 PM. However, GetResponse claims that early mornings (4 AM to 6 AM) and late afternoons (5 PM to 7 PM) have the highest engagement rates for emails.
Cold emails are among the most useful marketing and outreach strategies. However, it depends on the overall optimization of such a campaign, because that is what ultimately yields results.
According to HubSpot, 23% of marketers find cold emailing an effective way to reach out to prospects. Moreover, 21% of marketers also claimed that cold emailing prospects result in the most leads.
It is a cost-effective method of reaching prospects - and also, nurturing leads - because it doesn’t require a substantial investment.
As a business grows, they don’t have to increase their marketing budget for emails significantly. It’s easy to scale email marketing campaigns and reach thousands more - or less.
One of the best benefits is that cold emails directly reach individual recipients or official business accounts. Since it’s a direct marketing channel, it puts a business in touch with decision-makers and increases the effectiveness of emails.
If a cold email has personalized content and subject lines, it could potentially lead to higher open rates.
The cold emailing campaigns are easy to measure and often give accurate insights into the results of the campaigns. For instance, it allows marketers to track metrics like:
In addition, these metrics are what impact the conversion rates in a cold emailing campaign as well.
Through target audience segmentation practice, businesses can reach out to prospects in different industries, regions, and even continents using cold emails.
As discussed earlier, cold emails can also be successful in building lasting relations. After introducing prospects to a business and its offerings, the business can continue to engage with them through cold emailing to build trust. Besides, nurturing leads often make larger purchases.
How does a business know that it is sending cold emails to the right individuals? A practice called “target audience identification” is what improves a cold email campaign. It also helps in crafting personalized emails that match the recipients’ needs and preferences. Many businesses do that and turn to legal email list purchases to speed up lead generation – for example, from BookYourData.
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To start off, a business has to create ideal buyer personas. This highlights the specific traits and common features of different audiences. It also specifies pain points, behavior patterns, and demographic information of audiences to help with email personalization.
The next step is conducting thorough research to keep track of the changing needs, preferences, and/or business challenges of the prospects. This also involves staying tuned with market trends and demand shifts.
Moreover, identifying the target audience also involves determining the best time to engage with it. For instance, a particular audience segment might engage during the early morning while another might communicate more effectively during late afternoons - or even on weekends!
Once the target audience is all set, the next ideal step is to craft the email content. This means creating personalized messages that boost outreach efforts.
It starts with the subject line. If the subject line isn’t catchy, engaging, professional, or a mix of those traits, then the chances of the email getting opened are low.
Overall, the content inside the email (other than the subject line) should also look personalized. If it appears generic or boilerplate content, it won’t be as effective.
The structure of the email should nearly always be concise. This means creating an email that delivers key value and communicates succinctly without looking like a wall of text. Moreover, the cold email should include features like:
Sometimes, trigger words can lead to cold emails ending up in the spam. A few of those words include:
However, when used strategically in conjunction with appropriate messaging ideas, they can lead to a potential increase in open rates and overall click-through rates.
Of course, the right time to send cold emails will depend on a range of factors. The target audience could be in a different time zone or have unusual working hours - or days (like working on weekends regularly). Moreover, factors like industry and location also influence the optimal time for sending such emails.
As discussed earlier, the most commonly suggested time slots to get high open rates for cold emails are from early morning to late afternoon. This means sending cold emails anywhere from 9 AM to 3 PM or even 5 PM to 7 PM.
Previous research and statistics indicated that the following days stand as the “best” ones for outreach campaigns and cold emailing:
To make sure the business has a good understanding of the best time to send cold emails, it should consider a few factors that directly affect it (i.e., the optimal time for emails).
The cold email strategy should align with the timezone of the recipients to ensure it reaches them at the most appropriate time.
Further, different demographics can also lead to varying response times. Some audiences might respond early, others might have a greater chance of responding late. Using a segmented email list by signing up with BookYourData can help a business understand audience behavior better.
It is important to consider the device usage among the target audience. This is particularly important because if the audience is an avid smartphone user, it might be effective to reach them during out-of-office hours. On the other hand, if they only use desktops to interact with emails, office hours might be the most ideal time.
Most of the time, marketers turn to automation tools like “automated scheduling” to send emails at the right time. For instance, professionals might be able to set certain parameters or conditions like “send emails when read receipt received”.
This is also one way to see if someone has read the email. Moreover, they can also set particular time slots for sending cold emails to increase effectiveness.
Planning follow-ups is also an important part of determining the optimal time for sending cold emails. Sending them too early might seem “pushy” and sending them too late negatively affects the results of a cold emailing campaign.
Whatever the most optimal time for sending cold emails might be, sending them on weekends - and particularly, late at night - is a bad idea. Unless, the target audience is in an industry or time zone that makes doing so effective.
Without regular monitoring and useful feedback, a business cannot optimize its cold emailing or even any other outreach campaign. And, without optimization, it is quite difficult to get better results.
It is advisable to use email tracking and optimizing tools like Google Analytics. They reveal how recipients are interacting with the cold emails to help businesses optimize the outreach campaign.
It is also a best practice to experiment with cold email variations. The A/B/C testing can help a business experiment with different subject lines, sending times, and personalized content.
Many marketers use key performance indicators (KPIs) to find out if a cold email outreach campaign has been successful. They use the same metrics as mentioned earlier, which include but aren’t limited to click-through rates, open rates, and reply rates.
Furthermore, marketers also regularly review their email campaigns to see if there’s been an improvement or decline in performance. This helps make necessary adjustments on time to prevent resource wastage and improve results. The most ideal periods to do this are monthly, quarterly, and annually.
There are countless ways to improve cold emails which can also improve the open rates. Some of them include:
A recipient is more likely to open and respond to an email from someone who looks like a reputable professional rather than a “spammy” sender.
The subject line is what determines whether the email gets opened, so going for an engaging and succinct subject line matters. As a rule of thumb, many marketers use timeliness and content relevance to craft email subject lines that work.
In addition to email subject lines, the content of the email should remain short and concise. It shouldn’t be so brief that it creates confusion as to what the email is about. On the other hand, it should be lengthy enough to convey the key values and main message effectively.
Another underrated strategy to increase open rates is by updating the email list. If a team is getting only a 5% open rate for its cold emails and the email list has more than 40% invalid emails, then it’s time to make changes. It could be either through buying verified email lists or setting up strict email list segmentation to reduce bounce rates.
Overall, how valuable and useful the email is to the recipient will influence their decision to respond. So, the timeliness and relevance of the email will not just impact the open rate, but also the click-through and response rate.
The golden rule of “how frequently should someone be emailing the prospect list is: emailing often to stay relevant enough, but not so much to become a nuisance. So, consistency will be key in any cold email strategy. And for that, sending 1-2 emails per week stands as an ideal frequency to begin with.
It is clear that after creating a personalized cold email, picking the right time to send it is also a crucial aspect of a successful outreach strategy. While days like Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday stand out for their expected engagement rate, choosing the right time still matters.
As a rule of thumb, the period between 9 AM to 12 PM and 12 PM to 3 PM seems to hold the most success for cold emails. And, with personalized subject lines, concise messaging, and relevant content, the open rates could increase further.
Furthermore, adding premium and verified email lists from providers, such as BookYourData can also streamline the process. With quality contacts, the deliverability rate is higher, which means the potential for success is higher too!
Yes, as some sources suggest most B2B recipients might engage more during work hours. Meanwhile, B2C audiences could also engage during the evenings.
Most professionals suggest that cold emails late at night, on weekends, and during holidays are less likely to get satisfactory open rates or responses.
In the majority of cases, sending cold emails on weekends won’t be as effective - unless of course, the industry demands it because your target audience is working on those days.
So, now that you know how to send the perfect cold email, you can work with BookYourData to level up your B2B prospecting.
With over 100k+ users and 20k+ paying customers since 2015, Bookyourdata is the top choice for B2B data, whether you’re an innovative startup or a market giant.
Simply head over and sign up with BookYourData with 10 free credits for free today to begin building your lists!
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