Early in the New Year, a marketing research firm declared Wednesday the best day for e-mailers to send out their messages. This contradicted late-2007 research, which stated the choicest days were either Tuesday or Thursday. That finding, in turn, had refuted mid-year research that conclusively proved Saturday was the one day every e-mail marketer should embrace.
In an effort to sort through conclusions that run the gamut from specious to spurious, Loose Cannon commissioned a cross-discipline academic roundtable discussion at Miskatonic University. We convened in a small lecture room in the physical social sciences building.
“When evaluating how a given day of the week affects e-mail open rates, one must consider the Heisenberg uncertainty principle,” said Pavlova Rugelach, chair of the applied philosophical mathematics department.
She continued, “Until a marketer reviews a campaign report, every e-mail sent exists in a state of both openness and un-openness. Once an effort is launched a marketing director may truthfully tell C-level executives that overall open rates stand at 50%, given the binary nature of the two possible outcomes for every message. Of course, this falls apart once the marketing director looks at an actual campaign update.”
Mandelbrot Babka-Fresser, professor of unstructured marketing mathematics, indicated the numbers weren’t quite that simple.
“Nano-segmentative analytics require that we look not only at day of the week but time of day, as well as desired result,” Babka-Fresser said. “I’ve just submitted a paper to the American Journal of Vapid Algorithms in which I break a standard-issue week into 168 discrete temporal units. My analysis conclusively proves that the best time is Tuesday morning for pure open rates, Saturday at just before supper for click-throughs on links presented within messages, Monday at dawn for deliverability rates, and alternate Friday afternoons for purchases.
“The Babka-Fresser algorithm consists of a list hygiene coefficient of my own devising applied to total mail-out rate as indexed by a recipient interactivity coefficient. All this, of course, is divided by 3:30 pm….”
Babka-Fresser blinked. “I seem to have inadvertently divided click-through rates by the time the faculty sherry lounge opens. I must call my publisher immediately!”
Kolach Zimtsterne, of the university’s physics department, provided a succinct suggestion for marketers. “Analytics are bunk. The individual days of the week are irrelevant. My advice is that marketers gain a mastery of quantum physics that will allow them to go back in time to when their targets’ e-mailboxes were less overrun. Say 1957 or 1958. Failing that, they should print out their messages and nail them to their prospects’ front doors.”
Kuchen Tishpishti, who occupied the university’s endowed chair of neurobiological marketing processes until he spilled a glass of slivovitz on the fabric and it had to be taken away for reupholstering, used a prop to illustrate his theory.
“Let my hat be the average e-mail recipient’s cognitive functionality, because before we can consider which day of the week is the most advantageous, we have to consider the whole of the e-mail experience as it interfaces with cognitive function,” he said, holding up a dark brown wool bowler.
“The forward-facing portion of the brim represents the attractiveness of the subject line, while the brim’s total circumference constitutes the combined value of the offer, relevance of the messaging and sophistication of the graphics, while the arc of the crown, divided into 24 segments of 15 degrees each, is the consumer’s ability to focus on the message.”
Tishpishti then produced a horsehair brush from his briefcase. “This little hat brush is the consumer’s credit card purchase, or whichever response action the marketer desires. While the little hat brush provides good daily maintenance, the e-mail message/hat is going to need a complete steaming and reblocking, preferably by a professional.” He waved the horsehair brush around once for effect, and sat down.
“That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, does it?” Rugelach blurted out.
“With a last name like Tishpishti, what does it matter?” the professor answered bitterly.
At this point Zimtsterne’s BlackBerry device began beeping with the announcement of incoming messages. As one, the academics muttered excuses and rose to attend to other duties. I leave it to readers to draw what conclusions they may regarding academia and e-mail metrics.
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