In the class I teach at Georgetown, one of the first things we cover about digital marketing are the six key questions to ask yourself before you get started doing any kind of marketing activity:

• • Who is your target audience?
  • What are we saying to them?
  • Where are we saying it?
  • When are we saying it?
  • How often are we saying it?
  • Why does it matter to them?

For the purposes of this particular blog, let’s talk about the “when.” After all, if you think about it, you can craft a perfect message for your audience, say it in the right place to them, say it multiple times, and have it be the most relevant to their needs. But if you catch that individual at the wrong time, you won’t be effective at moving that person further down toward purchase.

To give you a quick example, I’ve been interested in buying solar panels for my house. So, I got on a list and expressed some interest in one site – an aggregator of different solar panel dealers. Obviously, I’m in the target audience (having expressed interest and being a homeowner). What they’re saying to me (“the what”) is compelling and it’s relevant to me (why). They say it a lot so I know the different providers names. They call me (“the where”), which fine. I’d like to talk to someone.

But it’s the time they call. During the week and during the day or a weeknight (when I don’t feel like dealing with it and have too much going on). We could advance this conversation further but it doesn’t because of the time chosen to reach out to me. They also hound me now – I get several calls a week (the “how often”). It’s nothing on a particular schedule but it’s more of a spray and pray approach. Which leads to outreach fatigue on my part, and a desire not to talk to anyone even though I was honestly interested.

That’s one example. Now, let’s take the opposite example.

I’m planning to take a summer road trip to Saratoga, NY in my car where I’m going to drive many hours from Washington, D.C. I have an older vehicle so I’m a bit worried about making it all the way and back but it’s overall pretty reliable. I get plenty of outreach from my dealer to come in and do a tune-up but it’s not a constant drumbeat year round. It’s on a schedule, as they know from their records, I haven’t come in to do a tune-up in more than 6 months.  So, recently, the dealer sent me an automated email about my car having not been serviced in a while (“the what” and the “when”), which was exactly what I needed at the right time. I scheduled the service. 

Note the difference. It was simply “when” I got the outreach. When you reach out at the right time with the right message, you’ll get better results.

The Question Is, How Do You Know When Is the Right Time?

OK, yes, it’s true that customers generally don’t shout from the rafters: “I’m ready to buy now” or have a t-shirt that reads: “I’m in-market.” (And yes, that’s also too bad because then it would be easy!) But there are things you can do to boost your chances that any messaging you put in front of them will be at least more well-received and your timing a bit more impactful.

Here are 4 ways you can better time your outreach.

No. 1: Dig Into Your Audience Data & Marketing Best-Practices Data

In a previous post, we talked about what it means to do data-driven marketing. If you dig into two data types in particular, your audience data and marketing best-practice data, you probably already have a lot of information right there that will tell you about when your audiences engage best (both the day and the hour), as well as general data that can give you insights into a broader audience pool.

For example, let’s take email outreach. From your own email marketing automation system and basic Google Analytics, you should have data that tells you who of your email recipients opened your email, the times they opened your email, who clicked to the website, and maybe even who converted from your email if you have set up tracking in the right way. On the marketing-best practices side, there is also lots of data available on the Internet and elsewhere that discusses the best days and times to send to optimize open rates, click rates for different industries. For most marketing emails, for example, Tuesdays thru Thursdays are often best to maximize engagement because Monday everyone is catching up at work. On Friday, people are often thinking of topics outside of your marketing so sending an email on Friday afternoon or evening may not make a lot of sense (unless you’re, say, a retailer). (Here’s a bit more on it from a recent blog, 5 Little Things That Matter for a Successful Email.)

Note: It doesn’t have to be just email outreach, you can do the same exercise and analyze data for your advertising campaigns, your website, and even your social media etc.

No. 2: Figure Out Audience Intent and Where They Are In the Buyer Journey

In the past, we’ve talked about mastering buyer intent – the idea that if you can understand where someone is in the buyer journey, you can send them the right message at the right time. For example, one of the easiest places to figure this out is in search, especially a site like Google. The search engine’s Keyword Planner can show you the volume of searches on topics related to your business. What you can decipher from these searches are those who are doing research (e.g., maybe they searching for “midsize sedans”) versus those who might be more in-market right now (“silver ford fusion hybrid 2024 mpg and specs near me”). See the difference?

And the best part: With search, you can place a search ad right in front of the individual that is searching for that very thing. That’s why from a timing perspective Google search often beats out other advertising formats because the ad can show up at exactly when someone is searching for something (either in the research phase or when they’re ready to buy.)

Another simple example: Let’s say someone submits an inquiry to your website about your products/services. Well, that individual is clearly interested and the time to reach back out is ASAP, right? Do you have an automated email set up or a series set up so that you can let the individual know you received their inquiry? Do you follow up with messaging on that inquiry soon after from a sales perspective? After all, the individual has basically revealed their intent to you. The longer you wait, the less likely that person will respond favorably to you.

No. 3: Figure Out When Customers Are ‘In Need’ or Most Receptive

Do you ever notice that commercials for insomnia drugs run at night? Or maybe early morning? In the old days, when people watched TV, cereal commercials would run when young kids were watching television during the morning and day hours. But rarely run at night. This idea of dayparting – running advertising only at certain periods of the day – is hardly new but it can definitely translate to digital and your audience as well. Maybe, for example, your small business sells to other businesses. For the most part, you’ll want to try to reach those business audiences when they’re at work. Not during the evening when many decisionmakers want to focus on other things. Then again, maybe you have an entrepreneur audience that is so busy with their own work during the week, that it might be better to reach out to them (via email) on, say, the weekends. (And actually the data bears this out – that workaholics tend to open and click on marketing emails more on the weekends.) For you, it’s really just understanding these different patterns and when you think someone could be most attentive.

No. 4: For Repeat Purchases or Services, Set a Standard Schedule for Audiences

We all know that we should go to the dentist to get our teeth cleaned every six months. Similarly, as in the example I gave above, we should probably get our cars tuned-up every 6 to 12 months. What really good marketing organizations do is send you timely updates and reminders that can be automated. In the case of both my dentist and my car dealership they’ve set up automated notifications to remind me to schedule my appointment (car) or that they’ve already scheduled an appointment for me (dentist).

When you think about it, that’s really smart. The messages come at a particular moment when it’s important for me to have that information. For anyone who buys products or services again and again, you can certainly set this up.

Another example: Let’s say you sell refrigerator water filters. If you someone buys a replacement filter, you actually know when that person will likely need to replace it. Why not set up an automated email connected to your store/CRM, that reminds them, say 4 to 6 months later, that they need to buy the product again? Those messages come at an ideal time because it makes customers say: “Oh yeah, I have to change that out, don’t I?”

Conclusion

As always, we hope this has been helpful as you think about timing your outreach to audiences. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re happy to provide a free consultation to discuss any of your marketing needs.