As a sales professional, you send hundreds of cold emails to your prospects and wait for them to open it and reply. There would be a lot of questions plaguing your mind, like what are your chances this time?
How do you get them to read your email?
What if you are left unread?
Well, timing is one factor that majorly affects your chances of getting a prospect to notice your email.
What we’re trying to say is, finding the best time to drop your cold emails is an important question. The right moment can make all the difference between your email being promptly noticed and acted upon or simply lost in the abyss of an overflowing inbox.
There is, in fact, a taut window of opportunity to grip their attention; you should know when that is. It could be your outreach sequence’s trump card.
Here, we will answer that question through in-house and external research. But we request you take a trial-and-error approach to find the best time to send cold emails since everyone’s outreach strategies and circumstances vary.
When Is the Best Time To Send Cold Emails?
So, you've got your cold email all set to go, but now you're wondering, "When is the perfect time to hit that 'send' button?"
Well, truth be told, there is no perfect time. The timing depends on the recipient's geographic location, industry, and many other factors.
When sending a cold email, you need to ensure you reach your prospects when they are most likely to see them. The best time to send a cold email is either 9 A.M. to 11 A.M.. or between 1 P.M. and 4 P.M., as suggested in the studies by CoSchedule.
During these times, people are typically at work; they're more alert, and therefore chances are high that they'll pay attention to an email that delivers value.
Dropping emails post 5 P.M. may yield lower response rates as people are probably winding down for the day.
Note: Take the above numbers as base timings for your email outreach. The best time to send cold emails could actually vary depending on your products or services, the time zone you prospect in, the industry, and your target audience.
How Does Timing Affect the Email Open Rate?
Oh, the frustration of seeing your well-crafted email go unnoticed in the depths of an inbox!
Think about it: if you send an email during the wee hours of the morning or late at night when most people are sleeping, chances are your email will be buried under a pile of other messages by the time they wake up and they won’t open it unless they’re always glued to their inbox.
Timing plays a crucial role in the email open rate, and it can be the difference between success and disappointment.
Here are some general things about timing while sending a cold email that can affect your email open rate:
- It is important to consider your prospects’ time zone before sending a sales cold email.
- Mornings are generally good since people check their emails as they start their day, but you might want to avoid the early rush when their inbox is overflowing. So, aim for mid-morning or early afternoon when things have settled down a bit.
Best Day of the Week To Send Cold Emails
If your target audience is 9-5 workers, this report from Yesware suggests Tuesdays and Thursdays are the best days to send cold emails.
These days are less hectic than Mondays or Fridays, so people may have more time to read and respond to emails. It’s highly dependent on who you’re reaching out to. For example, in B2B, workaholics, C-level executives, or founders would check their email more often over the weekend. But don’t expect millennials or gen Z workers to check their emails during the week offs.
Because the best timings change according to the audience and industry, we found which timings work best for different circumstances and different scenarios.
Best Times To Send Cold Emails Based on Industry and Audience:
With a bit of digging into the depths of the internet, a number of in-house studies conducted by email software businesses, and some understanding of the way different industries work, we came up with the best times to send cold emails depending on the industry you’re doing outreach in.
1. Technology and Software Industry
The best time to send cold emails to professionals in the technology and software industry are weekdays, preferably Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays between 10 A.M. and 11 A.M. or between 2 P.M. and 4 P.M.
During these times, technology and software professionals are usually at their desks and more likely to check their emails.
2. Finance Industry
The finance industry is typically busiest on Mondays and Fridays.
Therefore, the best time to send cold emails to prospects in this industry is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays between 10 A.M. and 11 A.M. or between 2 P.M. and 4 P.M. These times are typically less busy and may free up time for prospects to check emails.
3. Healthcare Industry
Professionals in the healthcare industry are often busy during the day, making early mornings and evenings ideal for sending cold emails.
Therefore, the best time to send cold emails to this industry is on weekdays between 6 A.M. and 7 A.M. or between 7 P.M. and 8 P.M.
Our suggestion here is to test out a lot of different times to find out when’s the best time, considering medical professionals may have varying shifts throughout the 24 hours.
4. Education Industry
For K-12 or higher education institutions, early mornings and evenings are the best time to send cold emails. Avoid sending cold emails during school hours when teachers, professors, and administrators are the busiest.
5. Real Estate Industry
Professionals in the real estate industry have busy schedules that often include appointments and site visits during the day. Therefore, the best time to send cold emails to this industry is on weekdays between 8 AM and 9 AM or between 4 PM and 5 PM.
When To Expect an Email Reply?
Ah, the eternal question! When it comes to expecting an email reply, it can be like sitting on a ticking time bomb.
The truth is, there's no one-size-fits-all answer, and it largely depends on the context and the person you're communicating with.
But in most cases people generally reply within 48 hours and beyond that the probability of reply falls drastically.
So, while you can't precisely predict when to expect an email reply, be considerate of your prospect’s time and have patience before sending a follow-up email if there is no response.
Tips To Remember When Choosing a Time To Send Your Cold Email
1. Do Not Send Emails on Weekends
- Because of lower response rates: 9-5 workers are less likely to respond to emails on weekends, as they may be spending time with family or friends, running errands, or taking a break from work-related activities. Your email will likely be pushed down throughout the weekend until the prospect resumes working, thus lowering the open and response rate. By then your email would’ve been buried by a sea of emails.
- Because it may show a lack of professionalism: Receiving a work-related email on the weekend can be perceived as unprofessional and intrusive, especially for prospects with a strict separation between work and personal time.
2. Do Not Send the Emails Before 7 AM
- Lower Open Rates: Regardless of how well-written and relevant a cold email is, the prospect may never find it if it’s sent too early in the morning. Because there will be a barrage of business, cold, and marketing emails inundating your prospect’s inbox between 7 and 10 A.M, so chances are that your email will be buried.
3. Avoid Sending Emails on Monday
- Because of the sheer volume of emails: People receive many work-related emails, newsletters, and other types of emails on Mondays. Plus, due to the fact that Mondays are reserved for catching up on left off work or conversations, little attention will be paid to emails.
- Negative associations: Mondays are often associated with the start of the work week, and some people may feel a sense of dread or negativity. Sending a cold email on a Monday may inadvertently contribute to these negative associations and make it more likely that your email is ignored or deleted.
4. Send Cold Emails During the Day
- Because prospects are winding down for the day: Cold emails sent at night can be ineffective because recipients aren’t actively checking their email or may be too tired to engage with the content. This could lead to your email being forgotten, your email never being read, or even getting marked spam.
So, keep all the points above to ace the timing of your email outreach.
Send Emails During the Perfect Time With Klenty
With the correct process in place, you don’t have to get up early to craft the perfect cold email. You can draft your cold email months in advance. How? Using a cold email software.
Klenty is one such cold email software (but don’t just do emails, we also help you do cold calls, automate cold messages on LinkedIn and give you the ability to send texts at scale). Inside the software, you can create hundreds of emails and follow-ups for hundreds of prospects and schedule them to be sent out between certain times of the day. Here’s how you can do it.
a) Schedule Emails To Be Sent on Specific Days
b) Send the Emails Only During a Certain Time of the Day
c) Send the Emails by Detecting the Time Zone of the Prospects
Bottom Line
The ideal time to send cold emails is whenever you think your prospects would check their emails. So this will depend on their industry and their work hours. But most 9-5 workers, managers, and senior executives would check emails first thing in the morning and during lunch and evening break hours. And stay away from Mondays when reaching out to prospects.
We highly recommend you to A/B test email sequences sent at different timings to prospects in the same industry.
FAQs
1. Is It Better To Send an Email at Night or During the Day?
2. Should You Send Cold Emails on Monday?
3. Is Morning a Good Time To Send a Cold Email?
4. Is It Okay To Send Cold Emails on Weekends?
In any case, if you decide to send cold emails on weekends, be mindful of the content and tone. Keep it concise, and respectful, and avoid sounding overly salesy.
To play it safe, it's generally best to stick to sending cold emails during regular business days and hours.
5. Is Friday a Good Day to Cold Email?
If you're considering sending cold emails on Fridays, here are a few tips:
Send in the morning: Aim to send your emails early in the day when people are more focused on work.
Keep it concise: Make your email brief and to the point to increase the chances of it being read, especially if the recipient's attention is decreasing as the day goes on.
