"The Best Day, Time and Format to Get
 Your E-Mail Delivered, Opened and Read"

f you publish your own e-mail newsletter, or you have even the slightest intention of doing so in the future, I urge you to read the following 'eye-opening statistics' with a very close eye. It could mean the difference between success and failure for you.Did you know, that the day you send out your newsletter, has a huge impact on the amount of people who read it?

Here's an example for you...

Just imagine if you always send out your newsletter on a Monday...you've really been missing the boat!

Very Useful Statistics, Which You Can Trust

One thing you might be thinking, is can you believe these statistics I am going to reveal to you? Can you trust them enough to change the way you publish your newsletter?

A resounding YES!

I was sent these breakthrough statistics from my autoresponder service earlier in the week, and I have been given permission to share them with you.

My autoresponder service is run by AWeber, who are one of the longest established autoresponder services on the Internet. They are extremely reliable and run a top notch, feature rich service. If you went on to any Internet Marketing forum right now, and do a search for all posts about autoresponder services, you will see page after page of praise for AWeber.

I would go as far to say that I don't remember ever seeing a bad word said about their service, and they are one of, if not THE most popular autoresponder service online today.

I have been using AWeber for over two years for all my e-mail lists, and send out every issue of this newsletter through them.

Anyway, enough about their credibility. Suffice to say, that if they release statistical data, it can be trusted, and acted upon.

Thousands Of E-Mail Newsletters Were
Studied, And This Is What They Discovered...

Over the past 30 days, AWeber conducted an extensive study of the thousands of newsletters being sent out through their system each day. Through tracking the various components of each newsletter, they have been able to determine with pinpoint precision, what works and what does not!

• 12,561 subscribers in an average customer opt-in newsletter list.

The Best Day To Get Your E-Mail Opened and Read

• Sunday generates the highest average open rate of 41.1%, followed by
  Saturday at 36.7%.
  
  Average Open Rate by Sent Date: (higher is better)
  
  Sunday 41.1%
  Saturday 36.7%
  Wednesday 34.0%
  Friday 32.8%
  Tuesday 29.6%
  Thursday 24.6%
  Monday 23.2%

But everybody seems to be doing the opposite...

Now compare the best days above, with the days that newsletters are actually being sent out. Amazingly, it seems that most newsletters are sent out on the worst days to send them. Much fewer newsletters are published on the days when they are most likely to be read.

• Monday is the most popular day of the week (worst day for open rates) for AWeber customers to send out their newsletters, with 17.1% of newsletters being sent on that day.
  
  Percent of newsletters being sent by AWeber customers weekly:
  
  Monday 17.1%
  Tuesday 17.0%
  Thursday 16.2%
  Wednesday 15.8%
  Friday 14.5%
  Saturday 10.3%
  Sunday 9.0%

The Best Day For Getting Your E-Mail Delivered

• Sunday generates the fewest undeliverable bounces at 0.36% for
  newsletters sent on that day.
  
  Average Undeliverable Rate by Day Sent: (lower is better)
  
  Sunday 0.36%
  Saturday 0.45%
  Friday 0.47%
  Thursday 0.56%
  Wednesday 0.77%
  Tuesday 0.83%
  Monday 0.88%

The Best Time To Send Out Your Newsletter

• An 8:00 AM EST send time generates the highest open rate of 50.6%. Interestingly, sending at 9:00 AM EST has a significantly lower open rate of 33.7% with the worst time to send being 3-4 AM at only 19%
  open rate.

The Best Format To Send Your Newsletter In

• Plain text messages are the most popular format of sending newsletters
  with 65.9% of all newsletters sent. Mime format Text/HTML messages
  follow at 23.8% and a remaining 10.2% of customers still send HTML
  only messages even though it is strongly recommended to always include a plain text version.
  
  
• Plain text messages generate the fewest undeliverable bounces at 0.46%. Mime format Text/HTML follows at 0.56% and HTML only messages have a whopping 1.09% undeliverable rate. This is a significant reason behind our recommendation to always send a plain text alternative with HTML formatted messages.
  
  
• Average open rate of HTML and Text/HTML newsletters is 29.7% over the past 30 days.

From those statistics, if you send your newsletter out in HTML format only, you are going to get more than twice as many undelivered e-mail, than if you sent it in plain text format.

Look What Happens If You Do This
With Your E-mail Subject Line...

• Subject line personalization using the date, generated an average open rate of 51.4% compared to personalization using the subscriber's first name generating 40.9% open rate. Newsletters sent without personalization of any type in the subject line generated average open rates of 28.9%.
  
  
• Only 17% of the newsletter subject lines sent in the last 30 days contained date personalization, while 19% used the subscriber's first name. 56.3% of subject lines did not contain any type of personalization. Interestingly, using the subscriber's full name or last name generated lower average open rates at 20%.

An Quick Summary

In a nutshell, it appears that most e-mail newsletter publishers are doing the exact opposite of what works. Instead, they are doing the things that are likely to give them the worst results. Are you one of them?

On many counts this includes me!

I will hold my hands up, and say that these statistics have taught me a hell of a lot. Many of the things that work, I had been made aware of and even used in the past. However, for some reason I stopped doing it. Things are going to change.

A summary of what works best:

• Sending out your newsletter towards the end of the week, is much better that sending it at the beginning. With Sunday being the best day.
  
  
• Personalizing the e-mail subject line, with the recipients first name, or the date, results in far more people opening the e-mail, than if you don't.
  
  
• 8.00AM EST is the best time to send out your newsletter, if you want to get more people opening your e-mail. (I missed that deadline today because I wasn't prepared, and had two little terrors called Ben and Adam to look after).
  
  
• Sending your newsletter in plain text only format, will result in more people opening your e-mail, and less e-mail being returned undelivered.

Final Word

If you want to get the best results with your e-mail newsletter, I hope you sit up and take notice of this statistical report. Just a few minor tweaks here and there, and you could see a huge jump in the profitability of your newsletter.

If you don't currently use an autoresponder service, I guess you already know that I highly recommend AWeber. Not just because they give out some very useful stats, but because they provide a first rate, and affordable service, with every feature you need.

Out of all the products and services I use to run my online business, my autoresponder is by far the most important and valuable to me. And for that, I put my trust in AWeber, and I would recommend them to anyone.

I hope you found today's report both enlightening, and useful,

Best regards,

Jason Lewis
Editor - 'Business Brainwaves' Newsletter