Here at KHJ, we are always looking for ways to improve campaign performance. We look to optimize message, channel, creative, and even timing. Day-part strategies are nothing new, we’ve been buying broadcast against our target audience’s daily schedules since the beginning. Want to get people to come into a restaurant? Buy evening drive-time radio. Looking to boost sales of coffee? Morning news is your friend.

But what do banks do when they want to target financial decision-makers?

insomnia-email-open_rate-bank_marketing
Think early, early a.m.

Truth be told, it is not uncommon to have a robust email exchange at 4:15 a.m. among a few KHJers. Turns out, we are not the only ones who aren’t sleeping at 4 am. A recent analysis by DigitalMailer of twelve-months of email data from banks and credit unions found that emails sent at 4 am saw a 38.38% open rate vs. an average open rate of 20-25%.

Other findings of note include:

  • Less is more…there is a point of diminishing returns in email marketing, too. Most of our clients are not even close to approaching that point, though. So we add “some is more” to this rule: you have to have a constant volume of emails in order to even reach a point of diminishing returns.
  • Manic Monday are best…in our effort to catch up at the start of our busy week, we tend to open more of our emails. Mondays saw an open rate of 30.44% v. the average of 20-25%.

When are you sending your emails? Are you waiting for traditional bank hours? Or are you getting a jump on the day and sending emails out in the wee hours of the morning? How has that strategy performed for you?

 

Read about our 4 New Rules of Bank Marketing here.

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