The Belmont Email Marketing Blog

Everyone knows that Christmas is the busiest time for retailers both online and off - but when is the busiest day for online retailers?

Although each of likes to believe that we are individual and unique, human beings are basically herd animals, and in large numbers our behaviour is extremely predictable. For the last few years, the busiest day for online sales has been the same. It's the day on which UK shoppers spend a million pounds a minute on the Internet.

Surprisingly, whilst offline retailers are usually busier at the weekend, the busiest online shopping day is on a Monday. It has become known in the e-commerce world as "Manic Monday" or "Cyber Monday". So when is Cyber Monday? And why is it so predictable that more people will shop online on that day than on any other?

Cyber Monday occurs when it does because it is the first Monday after the last payday of the year - so it's simply the week when people are feeling most flush as they fritter away their disposable income on gifts for others. People want to shop as soon as possible so that gifts arrive in time to be wrapped and, in some cases, posted in time for Christmas.

Since online retailing began, every year has broken the previous year's records for online sales. PayPal have predicted this year that online sales will soar by up to 60%, with the peak being expected on Cyber Monday - last year's was the busiest ever.

This year's Cyber Monday is 28th November. Online retailers would be wise to organise promotions and special deals around this date, and promote them to their customers using well-planned email marketing and social media campaigns, in order to grab their share of the massive amount of money that will be changing hands in just a few weeks time.  

Online retailers have had another record Christmas. While High Street retailers suffered in the snow, online sales were up by 25% over 2009. By contrast, offline sales were up by just 2% on the previous year.

However, despite these high levels of growth, experts predict that in 2011 online sales will continue to see double-digit growth.

This time last year, online sales were predicted to grow over the full year by 13%, but actually increased by 18%. This level of growth is expected to continue throughout 2011 despite continuing uncertainty about the UK economy, which is expected to hit consumer demand. Retailers who are not already online could do well by expanding onto the internet.

UK shoppers spent £6.8bn online in December alone (source:IMRG). Boxing Day was the busiest online shopping day of the year, with sales of over £300m, and even Christmas Day saw sales of over £150m.

The highest growth this Christmas was seen in clothing, which grew by 40% as everyone bought more clothes to combat the harsh weather, and alcohol at 36% as we all got properly stuck in to the party season.

Nothing like a new coat and a few tipples to take the edge of the winter chill!

1. Being Boring

The subject line should grab the reader's attention and motivate them to open the email. The copy should be brief, using short sentences. Talk about what's interesting to the reader, not yourself.

2. Overselling

Do you like being sold to? Thought not. Nobody does, and emails that do nothing but sell are a big turn-off. Email marketing is about building a relationship with existing and potential customers, establishing your credibility as a source of useful information and valuable content.

3. Poor Targeting

Email marketing is not about bombarding everyone with emails about everything under the sun. It's about emailing people with what they want, when they want it. The more that you are able to focus your email campaigns according to your customers' preferences, the better.

4. Intrusive emails

You must have permission to send an unsolicited marketing email to someone – that's the law. If you have a business relationship, including enquiries, then that counts as implicit permission to send emails on related topics, but don't assume that your emails will be welcome. The law aslo requires that you make it easy for someone to unsubscribe from your emails. It's good practice anyway – why would you want to email someone who doesn't want to hear from you?

5. Impersonal emails

Write as if you are writing to one person, not writing a sales brochure. Use a system that allows you to personalise the email with the reader's name. Research has proved that this will improve results.

6. Expecting Instant Gratification

Email marketing is like driving a steam train – you have to shovel some coal before you can build up a head of steam. So don't expect instant results from your email marketing. Be patient and persistent, and you will get results.

7. Using Low Quality Servers

ISPs, the people who supply your internet connection and email, work hard to protect you from spam emails. They monitor the reputation of the servers that send emails. If you send from a server with a poor quality reputation, your emails stand less chance of getting through. Worse still, if you send from your own email account, your ISP might cap your emails, or you might get your domain blacklisted. The only sensible option is to use a commercial service for your marketing emails.

8. Using too many images

Many email clients, such as GMail and Outlook, have images turned off by default. If you have too many images, your emails will look terrible to your readers.

9. Not Measuring Results

If you don't measure the results of your emails, you won't know how they are being received or how to improve them. Using a professional email marketing system will provide you with invaluable information about who reads your emails and what they do with them.

10. No Call to Action

Every email you send should invite some action from your readers. It is a great way to get people to visit your website, so make sure that your emails contain clear “call to action” to inspire your readers to do something. You can find out more about quality email marketing campaigns here!

Whilst High Street sales continue to suffer with low single digit growth, online sales hit a new record this July, with UK consumers spending an incredible £4.2bn on the Internet, according to recent figures from the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG).

Almost 1 in 15 of us made a purchase online during the month, and all the signs are that this trend will continue. While the first six months of 2009 were static for High Street sales, online retailers clocked up £23bn in sales.

Year-on-year growth in July in online sales was an incredible 16.8%. Where else in the UK economy can you find that sort of growth in today's climate?

There can be no doubt that online shopping is here to stay, and retailers are gearing up for the biggest ever online Christmas

This is good news for UK business as a whole, as online sales lead the economy out of recession.

One of the crucial decisions to be made when running email marketing campaigns is when during the week to send out your newsletters.  With so much focus on the 'to', subject, and content of emails, timing is a factor which is easy to overlook.

So what makes for good timing?   It really depends on whether your emails are business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2c).  If they're B2B, then there are a couple of rules around which there is broad consensus.  Firstly, you should not send on Mondays or Fridays.  On Mondays, inboxes have not been checked since Friday and are therefore pretty full.  People are more likely to be ruthless when it comes to deletion.  And on Fridays, people are too busy looking forward to the weekend and being able to finish work to be that responsive (and they may not even be there - there will be many who take Fridays off).  The other rule is not to send overnight.  Again, there is a problem with inboxes being full with other emails in the morning, but in addition most SPAM is sent overnight.  Your email might be mistaken for it.

Between Tuesdays and Thursdays, and regarding time of day, there is less consensus.  Some will argue that Thursdays are the best, as people have begun winding down towards the weekend and are therefore more responsive.  But seems to run opposite the reasons I mentioned earlier for not using Fridays.  Tuesdays and Wednesdays are likely to be the safer bet.  And what about time of day?  Well, between 10 and 2, when people are not dealing with full inboxes and may have the time for a quick coffee break or lunchtime read, are often regarded as the best times to send.

If your emails are B2C, then timing depends much more on what you are trying to sell.  In this case, Fridays and weekends may be much better times to send, for obvious reasons.   Sunday evenings is when the largest number of people are online - although remember that this might not make them more responsive.   On Friday evenings many will be in a good mood - although you have to catch people before they go out.  Think about who your market is and when they will be interested.  There may not be a set perfect time - it could be subject to seasonal change depending on the industry.

Mark Brownlow suggests some interesting innovations with email newsletter timing, such as sending emails at the time that the person registered for the email.  However, as is pointed out in a comment, this might be putting too much long term emphasis on one event.   People's behaviour changes, and it is vital that you adapt.

As with all things, it is important to test what works for you.  Try different times, and see the response rate.  Do split-testing of your newsletter.   Remember to keep updating your research and responding to changes in behaviour.  If too many other firms agree with you that a certain time is the best one to send, then inboxes may fill up then and your response rate may go down.   You therefore have to balance the need to build trust and expectancy by sticking to a regular newsletter time with the need to keep ahead of changing behaviour.  And remember; although perfect timing is good, getting your email read is only the first step.