How to Choose the Best Time for Messaging

Table of content:

• Why messaging time is important
• When to send messages if you run a restaurant, store, or other business
• How to find the best messaging time for your customer base
• What are the most frequent messaging hours
• When is it better not to disturb users with messaging
• How to schedule a dispatch for a specific time and date
• Expert opinion

Even if you provide great service to your customers or sell a quality product, it may not be enough to generate high engagement with potential customers. The result strongly depends on messenger marketing. For example, the ability to offer a product to a user when he needs it most. This article will show you how to find the best time for your SMS campaigns and increase your sales.

You may have a useful product with a competitive discount, but you won’t see any results if you don’t offer it to the client at the right time. This rule also works in the opposite direction: even if the product is not unique and costs higher than competitors, telling the user about it when they need it would highly increase the chance that the sale will take place.

The best time to send messages depends on the target audience. Here are some ideas on which SMS timing to choose for different business areas:

• Retailers can use SMS to confirm orders, report discounts, promotions, and more. Send messages at the beginning of the month: potential customers receive their salary during this time, and are ready to buy.
• If you own a restaurant, do not forget to send messages before dinner: until about 5 pm on weekdays. Report promotions before noon on weekends to pamper your customers with breakfast. Until noon on weekdays is the best time for messaging with a good business lunch offer.
• Travel agency owners can increase customer loyalty with caring messages upon arrival at their destination. Greet them with a message that contains a list of local attractions and current events. On Thursday evenings, when people are planning the weekend and before the holidays, send messages with information about last-minute tickets and ticket discounts. This is how you initiate the demand for your services.
• If you’re an event manager, make sure to send a personalized message a month, week, and 2 days before the event to remind guests of an upcoming exhibition or conference and build interest. Schedule your dispatch to be sent a few days before the event to sell the latest tickets.

To perform an A/B test

To inspect the habits and behavior of your customers to find the right time for messaging, use the A/B testing method. You can run the test like this:

1. Divide the audience into two equal parts. The audience size must be statistically significant. You can find out if your audience is enough for A/B testing using special calculators.
2. To send the same message to each audience cluster, use cascading messaging so that the SMS reaches the customer exactly. For each cluster, select a messaging time: for example, send a message to one in the morning, and the other in the evening.
3. Analyze the messaging performance metrics — Open rate (if possible) and Click rate. Find out which cluster has a higher Open rate and more clicks on the link in the message: the time selected for sending messages to this cluster will be optimal for future dispatches to your database.

You can launch A/B testing on the Messaggio platform: prepare two identical message templates, and specify different times for sending. The system will do the rest of the work for you! It will divide the audience into two parts and start sending at the appointed hour. The A/B test is configured when creating a dispatch. Read more in our guide “How to improve messaging campaign results: A/B testing”.

To use the message delivery at the best time

On the Messaggio multi-channel messaging platform, there is a technology that allows you to take into account the user’s activity and send a message when he or she is more likely to read it.

If there are several peaks of activity and they are equivalent, then the average is selected. If there are two peaks, then the one that falls within the interval of 9 to 21 hours of the local time of the user is selected. If there is no information about the user, then the message will be delivered immediately or on schedule.

By using the delivery at the best time feature, you personalize each message, and this will contribute to an increase in the Open rate of the dispatch. You can enable the feature in your Messaggio dashboard in the “Launch settings” section.

If there is no time for A/B testing and statistics accumulation, and you need to decide when to make a launch immediately, choose one of the intervals suggested below — they are most often used by companies to announce themselves to the audience:

• From 8 am to 10 am on weekdays. Most people at this time start to “clean” messengers, check notifications while getting to work or college, or just drink their morning coffee.
• From 17.00 to 21.00 on weekdays. Clients return from work or college, relax after a working day, checking their smartphones. During this time, new messages do not seem intrusive.
• From 10 am to 12 pm on weekends. During this period, users rest after a week of work and will not find the advertising message unpleasant. You can even report on upcoming weekly promotions and discounts
• From 4 pm to 7 pm on Sunday. People are getting ready for the workweek and tidying up their private messages. Users are ready to communicate: they are full of energy and relaxed browsing news and offers.

When scheduling your dispatches, consider several factors:

• Timezone. Focus on clients’ GEOs. If you send an email at 12 noon Moscow time to a user from New York, it will cause resentment and he will not buy anything.
• Allow time for your message to sink in. It is better to notify the customer about the sale this coming weekend on Thursday or Friday, so that the potential buyer can think about the offer and plan a shopping trip
• Don’t send an SMS during the holidays. An innocent message in the midst of a family lunch or romantic dinner could cost you a client.
• Don’t bombard with promo messages. Limit yourself to one marketing email per week to avoid appearing intrusive to the user. Service messages, such as appointment reminders or shipment notifications, can be sent more often because users expect to receive them.

When you have chosen the time for the messaging, it is worth considering the technical side of the issue. It is convenient when messages are sent at the right hour by themselves, especially if you are going to make several dispatches at different times.

For this, the Messaggio platform has a functionality for scheduling messages: when setting up a dispatch, specify the date and time for the sending to start. You can always cancel the scheduled dispatch before the launch. On the main dashboard of the Messaggio platform, all scheduled dispatches on the behalf of the company are available in the calendar.

For more information on how to schedule a dispatch, read the Messaggio Knowledge Base.

Finally, we share a piece of advice from the Account Manager of the Messaggio platform Boris Shishkin about the best time to choose to send messages:

If you have a complex, expensive product with a long decision-making cycle, try sending messages in the morning. This will give the client time to think, weigh up the pros and cons, and make a choice by the end of the day. If you are from the e-commerce segment, for example, a multi-brand online clothing store with an average price policy, and your target audience tends to make an impulsive purchase decision, send messages with profitable offers towards the end of the day. At this time, people return from work and will gladly delight themselves with a new wardrobe item.

However, at Messaggio, we try to select the best time for sending messages individually. New tools on the platform will reduce the time spent on testing different timings and schedule messaging campaigns based on data.