One of the burning questions on the lips of many email marketers is: when is the best time of day to send out emails?

Well, an interview between MarketingSherpa and Hunter Boyle, Managing Editor of MarketingExperiments reveals that it might just be dawn. Apparently:

1. Emails sent before 9 a.m. achieve higher click-through rates;
2. Early risers on the U.S. east coast tend to respond to email before their workday begins; and
3. Marketers with international lists should test list segments based on timezone.

You can hear the interview by visiting MarketingSherpa.

Despite these findings I would urge you to test different times for yourself. Dawn may or may not be best for YOUR market…

Source: MarketingSherpa, “Podcast: New Test Results for Email Send Times: 3 Major Takeaways”, MarketingSherpa

Yesterday I mentioned my weekend away at Daylesford, a small town north-west of Melbourne.

I explained how the bed-and-breakfast my husband and I stayed at failed to keep the “promise” it made to us: the promise of a good night’s sleep.

Then I proposed that everyone in business makes “promises” to their customers… promises that may not be obvious, yet are always assumed… And that if you break them, you are likely to lose your most valuable, loyal customers.

So how do you know what promises YOU make to YOUR most loyal customers?

Well, here’s the first hint: these promises may not have anything to do with your “unique selling proposition,” or your slogan, or your company’s mission statement.

You may not even mention them in your sales and promotional materials.

In fact, they are to be found among the daily activities of your business.

They are often the “little” things you do everyday - or should do everyday - and that your customers expect.

Let’s take three promises an online business is likely to make:

• Providing detailed, user-friendly instructions (e.g. for a software program or an Internet based service);
• Providing an acknowledgement when a customer sends them an email or purchase request; and
• Delivering prompt, friendly and helpful customer support.

Nothing major here, right?

Yet how many times do you purchase software, or sign up for an online service, only to find instructions that are impossible to understand?

How many times do you send an email, a support ticket, or even buy something… and receive no acknowledgement that your email, ticket or purchase was received?

And how many times do you request customer support… only to be told to read the instructions? (That ain’t providing the customer with “support”, folks)

Let me be frank. Failing to keep basic promises like these will turn otherwise loyal customers away in droves.

Okay, so if you offer a unique, superior product or service, maybe they’ll stick around despite the difficulties of doing business with you.

But as soon as someone comes along with a comparable product or service that keeps those promises… YOU’RE TOAST!

So have a think about these and any other promises you might be making… and breaking… to your loyal customers.

Then do whatever it takes to keep those promises!

You’ll not only keep your current customers, but you’ll spur them to refer you to their friends… which means MORE customers and MORE sales and profits for you.

Philip Kaplan has released a service, HitMeLater, that enable you to delay incoming email.

According to Mr Kaplan, the service is “free, secure and spamless” and doesn’t require registration. You just send an email to 24@hitmelater.com and the service will resend it to you 24 hours later.

You can change the delay period by substituting the “24″ with some other number or day. For example, if you send an email to “4@hitmelater.com”, you’ll get it back four hours later. Send it to “wednesday@hitmelater.com” and you’ll get it back the first Wednesday morning after sending the email.

Tech Crunch’s Michael Arrington reckons he’ll be using HitMeLater to forward his email to Sunday@hitmelater.com (his slowest email day).

I suspect HitMeLater will only be useful if you can configure your email client to automatically forward your email to a predetermined HitMeLater email address. Otherwise you’ll be manually forwarding all those emails. Not that much of a time saver.

Also, another alternative for delaying incoming email is to configure your email client to only download email at certain intervals.

Just remember, the longer you delay all that email… the more email you’ll be inundated with at once…

Source: Michael Arrington, “HitMeLater: A Snooze Button For Your Email”, Tech Crunch, August 14, 2008, HitMeLater

Today, July 7, 2008 the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) changes to the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM) take effect.

There are two new rules, in particular, for Internet marketers to take note of – yes, they may require you to make some changes to how you market:

1. Unsubscribing needs to be easier

You cannot require an email recipient to do any of the following in order to unsubscribe from your list:

– Pay a fee;
– Provide information other than their email address and opt-out preferences; or
– Do anything more than send a reply email message OR visit ONE web page.

2. Clarification over “forwarding to a friend”

Under the revamped law, any email sent via a web-based referral form is considered to be sent by the person or company that owns the website. In other words, if you encourage people to fill in a form in order to send a referral message to others, YOU - not the referrer - are considered to be the sender.

Now for some good news and bad news.

First, the bad news. Well, it’s not exactly “bad”… but if you provide a reward, incentive or inducement to someone in return for forwarding a message to someone else, then you must comply with the CAN-SPAM Act as if the email was directly sent by you.

So, for example, you must provide a physical address to those who receive such messages and provide them with the ability to opt-out. Presumably, however, if the recipient of the referral email is not actually added to a list, there is no need to provide an opt-out mechanism.

The good news is that if you simply give people the ability to forward a message or send a link to others - and neither are they added to a list nor provided with a reward, incentive or inducement for forwarding such a message, you are not held to such CAN-SPAM requirements.

Of course, this is our understanding of the new laws; this ain’t legal advice and you should consult a qualified attorney!

Source: MarketingSherpa, “CAN-SPAM Update: Have You Complied With the New Rules Yet?”, MarketingSherpa, June 25, 2008