The Best Time for an E-Mail Appeal

April 06, 2008

The Best Time for an E-Mail Appeal

Nonprofit groups that rely on e-mail newsletters to raise money should pay attention to the results of a recent test conducted by the online game company Lumosity.

Lumosity tested a program in which it timed its e-mail sales pitches to customers to be sent to those customers on the same day of the week that those customers originally signed up for its e-mail list.

Instead of sending a blast to all of its subscribers at the same time, the company timed its appeal to each individual.

If a person signed up on a Tuesday, for example, he or she received messages only on Tuesdays. If the person signed up on Friday, that person was contacted on Fridays.

The company split its list and compared the results of that approach to the results of similar messages sent to customers on random days.

The result?

“Consumers who received e-mails on the same day of the week that they originally signed up ‘won handily,‘” according to the blog MarketingSherpa. “Also, game usage at their Web site jumped 81 percent — it’s the metric that drives sales and is deemed most relevant to increasing paid subs.”

The takeaway for nonprofit groups is simple, writes Nancy Schwartz, a fund-raising consultant.

“Those are the times your people are doing what you want them to do,” Ms. Schwartz writes on the blog Getting Attention. “Make it easy for them to do it. Meet them on their time.”

— Peter Panepento

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