By Liviu Tanase, Founder & CEO of ZeroBounce – published on Entrepreneur on 11/12/20

If there’s one channel you’re smart to focus on this holiday season, it’s email. Its efficiency is undeniable: email offers a potential return on investment (ROI) of $42 for every $1 spent. Sounds promising, but the 2020 holiday season will be the most atypical in decades. What approach should marketers take? What changes should they make in their messages and timing? Is there a best day to send promotional emails?

First, let’s see what data from previous years shows us.

Emails sent on Thursdays get the most attention

In a webinar on email strategy during the holidays, Oracle’s team of marketing researchers uncovered some interesting behavioral trends. “Most of the spikes in responder rates happened on Thursdays,” they say, referring to both 2019 and 2018 holiday seasons. “Thursdays tended to be lower volume days. With that lower competition in the inbox came a higher share of consumer attention and positive engagement,” explains Chad S. White, Head of Research at Oracle CX Marketing Consulting.

Here are a few other observations White and his colleagues made to help you pick the best time to hit “Send”:

• While Thursday stands out as a clear winner, Fridays saw a dip in responder rates.
• In the days after popular holidays, sending volume drops, but engagement increases – there’s less competition and people are more active in their inboxes.
• Christmas Eve and Christmas Day had lower than average sending volume in 2019 and also, poor engagement. You may want to consider pausing your campaigns during those days.

Now that you have a good idea about timing, let’s make sure you have everything you need to make your emails a success this holiday season.

Read the rest (including Tom’s quote) at Entrepreneur.com.