Church Bells and Email Scheduling
Living with church bells…
I’m lucky to live right opposite a church with a wood behind it. In fact, I can see it right now if I look up from my desk. The trees are still bare but hopefully you can imagine how lovely it is for much of the year.
Much to my delight but to the consternation of others and exclamations of delivery men, the church bells ring every 15 minutes. Over the course of an hour it plays “Oh Lord our God” in parts - the first bar at quarter past, 2 bars at half past, 3 bars at quarter too and the full thing followed by the right number of dongs on the hour.
For the last 15 years since we’ve lived her my entire life is measured out in 15 minute intervals and goes to pot when the clocks change twice a year and the bells stops working for week or so until they’ve fiddled with.
…And what coincides with the dongs
And it’s very interesting what I’ve come to notice coincides with those dongs. My phone often buzzes as a little flurry of email marketing comes through on quarters and particularly on the hour while the church bell is counting them out. At certain times of the day there’s a big swoosh of them together and my inbox suddenly fills up.
Promotions from M&S, discounted printer inks, newsletters from people I find interesting, rubbish from companies I’m not remotely interested in and sometimes blatant spammers. And the things I’m genuinely interested in often get lost amongst the rubbish.
Notice how big Brands market in sync with one another
It’s also interesting to see how certain similar brands inadvertently sync and send emails at the same times on the same days (you might also notice this with promotional letterbox mailers).
Now sometimes it’s because these businesses are huge and have a team of specialists and tools analysing these things so know their target marketing inside out (think Amazon and Alexa as an extreme example).
How you can tap into that as a small business
As a small business you almost certainly don’t have the money, time or even appetite for such luxuries, but it does mean you can tag along and follow the patterns of brands who do.
For example, if your audience is likely to be the same demographic as say, the White Company’s target market, subscribe to the White Company’s newsletter and monitor when they send their emails. Does that timing make sense for your own audience? If so, try syncing your email marketing with it and see what happens.
BUT be careful with scheduling…
Why? Well, scheduling your campaigns is undoubtedly a time saver, but because it’s usually only available at 15 minute intervals it might also mean that your own email marketing is getting lost amongst these flurries of noise and sometimes spam.
Also, take a look at the reporting of your own previous campaigns. Do you tend to have a peak when people first receive it or later in the day at a certain time? What does that indicate and how might you factor that in?
If you’ve anaylsed that your target audience is likely to be good for say 9am, there’s a fair chance lots of other businesses will be sending them too and it might be worth saving the email in your drafts all ready and popping on the Mailchimp phone app to send it at 9:08am so that it comes out top of the pile in someone’s inbox instead. Just bear in mind that there’s sometimes a delay of a few minutes between you clicking on send and it actually sending, particularly if you have a free account where yours will be treated as a lower priority on the servers.
Give it a go and let me know
So take note, give it a go and see what happens. I’d love to hear how you get on so please drop me a line or comment below.
DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR NEED HELP?
If you need help with figuring out your email marketing to get it heard above the noise or Mailchimp and business strategy in general just drop me a line. You can also sign up in the footer to receive exclusive Mailchimp tips, hacks and feature demos by email. And don’t forget I offer help and advice starting from a simple Power Hour (and-a-half).
Best wishes
Claire