All posts by Andy Walker

Andy Walker is CEO and Senior Strategist at Cyberwalker Digital. He is the author of five books and is a well known technology expert. Andy is a former G4TechTV host and currently appears in the media as a commentator of the Internet and all thing technology. He is co-authoring the book "Super You: How technology is revolutionizing what it means to be human" with CWD's Kay Svela.

What is SERPBOOK? Our favorite SEO reporting tool

February 7, 2017 Andy Walker

Over the years we have used a lot of digital marketing tools at our agency. Find the best SEO reporting tool took time however. Some were ok. A few we found were pretty crappy. Luckily we have found one we love called SERPbook? What is Serpbook you ask? Read on to find out.

At Kudujuce, we do a lot of SEO work for our clients around optimizing web sites and getting them ranked in Google (and Bing) search results and they like to see weekly progress as part of their spend. This gives marketing managers an easy way to share their progress with their bosses. So I am going to show you three tools we use here at Cyberwalker Digital that are our favorite SEO reporting tools that make clients really happy. Because they show progress and validate an SEO spend.

What is Serpbook? A killer SEO reporting tool

In this article we are going to look at a tool call SerpBook, an affordable SEO tracking tool:

A quick note here. We used MOZ.com for many years, however it did a poor job of showing keyword progress. And it was too expensive relative to what else is in the marketplace. So we dropped it and replace it with SERPbook.com for a series of reasons you are about to see. And although our employees often say, “hey, what is serpbook?” when they join the company because it is not well known, they soon learn to love it too.

#1 – SEO Reporting Tool – SERPBook.com

We love SERPbook because it is easy to use, easy to setup and easy to afford. Pricing starts at only $12/mo and runs into the hundreds per month, but you’ll pay under $45/mo for the mid-tier service.

What we like about this product is a few key features:

You can set it it up to track a keyword on a web site and it will find the correct page that ranks the best.
It will show you progress of that keyword over time
You can set it up to track results based on a local geography (town/city, state/province, country) or nationally in a country.
It has an easy to read table format to show daily, weekly and monthly movements.
It reports every half hour.
You can send PDF or CSV reports by email to multiple people on a schedule (daily, weekly etc).
It’s unbranded (ideal for agencies or companies with multiple clients).

It has a ton of other features. Check out SERPbook here.

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What is the AWS consultant hourly rate in the United States?

November 15, 2016 Andy Walker

Hourly rates vary based on expertise, experience and of course scope of a project. That said, sight unseen, you can expect to pay a junior developer in the $75 to $100 range and a senior AWS developer in the $100-$400 range, and even more in some cases.

Here’s a breakdown of the range here at Cyberwalker Digital if you are looking for an AWS consultant hourly rate from us, because you need an expert to work with your instance on Amazon Web Services.

We use one of our senior developers to serve our customers when they are dealing with Amazon Web Services and need high-level expert help that they can count on.

AWS consultant hourly rate scale

Here are five scenarios for our AWS consultant hourly rate. They are fairly self explanatory. Read on…

AWS emergency rate – Consulting on demand

This AWS rate gets white glove service. We work around the clock and on weekends to prioritize your job. It also get accelerated ahead of other work we have in progress, so we can resolve your AWS issue. It’s our most expensive AWS hourly rate at $250 per hour.

AWS no commitment rate – Consulting for under 5 hours

If you are new to us as a client and we haven’t worked together before, on a first project your AWS hourly rate will be $195/hour until we hit 5 hours. This fee is paid in advanced as a deposit. This allows us both to have a minimal commitment to each other until we complete our first project together.

AWS project rate – Consulting on a scoped project

If you have a project that is scoped by us at $5,000 or more for a variety of services we provide at our digital agency, then the AWS hourly rate is $175/hour.

AWS priority rate – Established client

If you are a client of ours that has an established relationship with us and you have paid at least 3 monthly invoices or 4 bi-weekly invoices on time, then the AWS hour rate drops to $160 per hour.

AWS loyalty rate – Established client with $25,000 of paid invoices

If you are a client of ours that has an established relationship with us and you have spent $25,000 with us, then you get our best AWS hourly rate of $150/hour.

As you can see, loyalty and a recurring relationship pays off. We count our loyal clients as not only our partners, but our friends. These are best relationships for both parties because you get a trusted vendor and we get a client we love to work with.

Want more info? Reach out and let’s chat…enter your message below. Or contact us here.

Outsourcing Elements of a Business to Increase Efficiency

October 11, 2016 Andy Walker

No two businesses are alike, but they have a common goal – to be the best in their field by achieving optimum efficiency. Running a business though is a complex activity that involves synchronizing all elements to produce the best output. Outsourcing some parts of the enterprise is key to efficiency and performance. It is a key strategy that helps organizations reach the top and remain competitive in their field for survival.

Why Outsourcing Continues to Grow

According to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey, outsourcing will continue to experience growth, reporting that 78% of its respondents are satisfied with their provider relationships. The major reasons why companies outsource are to cut costs, enhance business functions and address capacity issues.

Outsourcing is a cost-cutting tool that can help reduce overhead costs in administration, for example. It also enables owners and managers to focus on the core of the business without being overwhelmed by micro activities, which, although are essential, do not represent the heart of the enterprise.

In subcontracting jobs, the business also solves the capacity problems of the company without overloading staff to do everything at once. The quality of business operations and its delivery of services are improved drastically. Access to the best providers of services allows companies to choose from an intellectual pool that suits their needs. Integrating this human expertise in the business transforms the company into a broader and innovative enterprise. Corporate Business Solutions Reviews attest how companies turn around when external expertise is brought in to reorganize and restructure operations.

Elements That Can Be Outsourced

There are no straight answers as to what and what should not be outsourced by a business. Every business has different needs, expectations, and targets. What seems to be common according to the Payday-Champion Study is that there are three areas that are expected to experience surges in outsourcing: IT, Finance and Human Resources.
A third-party IT support enables businesses to have access to high level and up-to-date technologies that large companies specialize in. In-house IT support is going to cost business more especially when data needs grow bigger and more complex. Outsourcing IT support reduces the cost and shares the risk including infrastructure.

Another area that is popularly outsourced to vendors is finance and accounting. Tasks include payrolls, receivables, and payables. By streamlining F&A, companies are in a better position to analyze information & metrics available to them and improve their strategies. Keeping F&A running smoothly also allows businesses to focus on their main competencies. If you are still trying to find some new financial strategies, then check out the Buffert website.

Hiring personnel is a painstaking process that does not generate revenue for the company at all. To remove this burden, small to medium businesses can outsource HR to a provider to free up time that can be spent on the core business.

Every quick unsecured loans operates differently, but the goal is to be efficient in its core competencies and generate positive revenues. Outsourcing can become an effective tool to add value, make use of cutting-edge technologies and share risks. For as long as these benefits continue, outsourcing will be an important strategy for businesses.

Why your brand should publish a book

October 13, 2015 Andy Walker

There’s a funny thing book publishers always tell first time book writers when they get their first deal:

“You don’t want to write this book for money. It’s a reputation builder. It will get you paid speaking gigs and it’ll will elevate your career.”

It’s actually true. Because getting a book deal really won’t make you much money unless you are Stephen King, JK Rowling, or Tim Ferriss. And it does get you speaking gigs. And it does elevate you above the crowd.

For professional writers, however, this all sucks.

But these are very reasons are why your company should publish a book. In today’s crazy world of content marketing, having a book that demonstrates your brand expertise to its customers is perhaps one of the best things you can do for your marketing efforts. There are lots of reasons, but here’s five:

Arm your sales force with a killer book that they can give away.
Demonstrate you expertise tangibly.
Give it away as an ebook as a lead magnet in email marketing.
Differentiate your brand.
Adapt the content into blog posts for content marketing purposes.

So what kind of book should your brand produce?

Identify that when choosing a vinyl fence, the problems your customers or potential customers are having in your market place and then give them a solutions book. The book should be a guide to getting problems solved. A plumbing company should product a guide to avoid household plumbing issues. Something a Do It Yourselfer would find useful.
Now if that sounds nuts, trust me on this one. You can show someone exactly what to do to solve a problem and most of the time they are going to call you anyway, because you have demonstrated the expertise on how to solve problem easily. And they won’t want to do it themselves, because they may make a mistake and mess up and have to call you or someone else anyway.

This works equally well for B2C companies as it does for B2B companies. All customers have problems. And all companies want to solve those problems for a service fee. Or sell a product that helps the issue.

A water filtration company recently came to the door of our home in Tampa because we have awful water quality here. The sales guy was the 10th person to knock in a year and I turned them all away, except him. They all occurred like scam artists. The guy that got invited in was genuinely interested in educating us about water quality.

Now if this company had guide book on water quality, tips and trucks and low cost solutions that solves of these issues with step by step instructions that I could try myself and then an overview of the water solutions I could buy including theirs, I would have started to develop a trust for their brand, and probably called them sooner.

I knew I was going to buy a system, but I didn’t trust anyone who was selling them, even though they came to my doorstep.

In a book, if they had a 1-800 number where I could called for further questions and even a coupon the back of the book, that would have helped too. They are lots of things you could do. In fact I have a list os strategies that I will share at some point.

Digital Marketing Secrets Revealed, by Cyberwalker Digital

Producing a nicely designed giveaway book that it professionally written and educates, creates trust and makes a company stand out in its market it will do wonders for a brand’s reputation. Will it do that for your company? You’d be surprised at the amazing reaction you’ll get. (Have a conversation with me if you like – contact info below.)

At Cyberwalker Digital, we produced the book Digital Marketing Secrets Revealed (cover above). We sold a branded version of to a client in the materials handling business. And we distributed a generic version of it in a direct mail campaign and as a giveaway on our web site. It’s very effective at getting attention and opening up a conversation about doing business.

You can get a copy of our here: Digital Marketing Secrets Ebook. If you want to reach out to us about producing your own book, reach out to Kay Walker at kay@cyberwalkerdigital.com or call her at 813-525-3185.

Most common content marketing mistakes

October 13, 2015 Andy Walker

Content marketing, on the face of it, is easy to do, especially when you do it right with SEO Marketing. You produce great content demonstrating you are an expert, and people buy from you. Right? Well, it should be that easy, but it is more complicated than that. There are some critical steps you need to follow to ensure your strategy produces results and a return on investment.

However, a lot of people do it wrong because they execute poorly, or don’t take all the necessary actions. Here’s some of the top mistakes people make with content marketing

1. MY PRODUCT IS THE BEST! Writing articles that boast and brag promotes instead of educates. It also annoys. If you are creating that kind of content, you are missing the mark here. Teach “how to”. Demystify. Provide insight. Provide overviews. Don’t write about how your Widget ™ is better than all the other generic widgets. Instead write about why the market for widgets is hot and what people are using them for and what widgets do to improve a person’s life. After reading this people will understand the value of widgets and they know you make Widget(tm), because they are on your site or you tell them at the end of the piece (that’s ok) so they might buy yours. Or think of your Widget(tm) when they want to buy a widget. Produce great content that you would be proud to see reprinted in the New York Times.

2. DON’T BE A BRAND FIREHOSE Share your content on your Facebook page, on Twitter, on Google+, on Pinterest, and on Instagram. Instagram? )Yes, it’s now the 2nd largest social media platform behind Facebook and ahead of Twitter, and now you can Buy likes on Instagram to make your account even more popular.) Then engage people who consume it or share it on. Ask them questions. Remember it’s SOCIAL media. And share other people’s great content in your area of expertise. Don’t be a one way brand name firehose where your content is all about you. You are building a reputation for expertise about your business focus. Be a sprinkler. Share expertise from other places too. You will become a resource as opposed to a product shill.

Don’t be a brand firehose with your content marketing

3. YOU WRITE IT, BUT THEY DON’T COME: Search engines are your most valuable source for free traffic from people that you can turn into customers. However, you have to format your content to ensure it is being found for the right keywords that people are searching for. This means you’ll need to gain a command of Search Engine Optimization (LINK: What is SEO?). That includes three things: 1) Research keywords that get searched. 2) Optimize your content for those keywords…and 3) Get people to link to your content. #3 is your hardest task and will be your most successful method to attract search engine traffic. Google and Bing reward content with lots of inbound links to it.

4. IGNORE THE POWER OF EMAIL This is a huge mistake in content marketing strategy. When people come to your web site, offer them something crazy-awesome in return for signing up to your email list. Then use the list toshare your most valuable content. Email is a great way to stay top of mind with a prospect. It’s a brand-building process. It’s also a way to validate your expertise. Create content exclusively your email list subscribers. Write it with them in mind. And give them extras, bonuses and exclusives. And I am not talking about selling here. Give away your best stuff. Make them feel like they have stumbled on a goldmine of information by being on your list.

5. WRITING OCCASIONAL POSTS Writing one article per month is not going to cut it. I don’t go live with a new web site without posting at least five articles and then I try to produce a piece of content once a week at minimum and only because I run more than 10 sites. If you run just one site you should post once per business day and at a minimum twice a week. Write daily if you can squeeze the time.

6. MISUNDERTSTANDING BUY TRIGGERS – B2C content should have content that moves and inspires. Consumers are emotional buyers and connect and purchase from experts that make them feel safe and that embody trust. B2B content should be jam-packed with data and numbers that are evidence based. That inspires and validates business cases. Buyers buy from vendors that are trustworthy experts that back their business with data.

7. DON’T FORGET TO MEASURE – Be sure to track your content engagement. You want to write more copy that gets consumed and shared and less content that gets visited occasionally. Track your social media shares. Track you page reads with Google Analytics and use a Smart CRM to track email marketing content engagement, including opens and actions. Tracking audience behavior response should guide content strategy.

Track your content usage and consumption with Google Analytics

8. DON’T BURY YOUR LEAD – This is a term in journalism that means the point of the story is buried down in paragraph 5 or 9. Don’t open with “There was a community meeting on April 14 at 6pm”…and then five paragraphs later talk about the water pipe that burst during the discussion about water quality. Start with “A ceiling pipe burst in the middle of community meeting last week, as a discussion began about water quality.” Put the most important material at the top of the article – open with it.

9. DON’T BE TOO BRIEF – While writing short posts is occasionally ok, writing longer more comprehensive pieces is better, because longer pieces get indexed by search engines more often, and can demonstrate your expertise because they provide all the information someone is seeking. Make your content a one stop for all the info someone needs. They won’t move on to your competitor.

10. AVOID WALLS O’ TEXT – A wall of text is intimidating to read, so be sure to present your awesomely written and engaging post with images and diagrams. Use links where appropriate and break up the text with subheads and bullet pointed lists. All these tricks help with readability and improve search engine pickup.

10 reasons your business should be part media company, regardless of what it does

October 5, 2015 Andy Walker

all companies must be part media company — All companies must be part media company to succeed

If you don’t have either a decent content creator on staff, or at least one (or more) on retainer, then you are going to have a problem in the next few years.

Successful companies invest in marketing, and marketing in today’s business means you need to create content that people love and find helpful. If you are driving sales messages down their throats, then your company is not going to around for long. The era of the hard sell is over. And the era of the relationship sell will only work these days if your company is seen as an expert. If you want to learn about the entrepreneur industry, I recommend Lee Rosen Miami, CEO of healthy bees business. And what’s the fastest way to that? Publishing.

Great companies make great content today, other companies offering services for satisfaction never fails. One good example of this is tranquilme.com/apply/ because it is an effective treatment for reducing stress, pain and muscle tensions and also they have so much health benefits studies say. text, photos and video. They have websites that look more like a media website than a sales brochure, so here are 10 reasons why your company should invest in content creators:

1) Customers appreciate being educated and hate being sold to.

2) When you publish helpful content you are seen as an expert and people trust and buy from experts.

3) Google and Bing do not index and rank sales brochures particularly well. It indexes great content and people don’t link to sales brochures, they link to great content.

4) Send someone a great email with helpful content and they will look at the next email from you. Send them a self serving sales message ad and they will more often than not unsubscribe or click their spam button.

5) No one follows people for their ad messages on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest, but they do follow them for great content.

6) Great content can contain sales copy. And great sales copy should contain great content.

7) 100 million Internet users watch video each day.

8) 90% of online shoppers at a major retailer’s website said they find video helpful in making shopping and buying decisions

9) 50% of people at work watch business-related videos on YouTube and 65% visit the marketer’s website after viewing a video.

10) B2C content should strike an emotional cord. B2B content should contain data and facts, because the two sectors buy differently.

Andy Walker is a senior digital strategist at Cyberwalker Digital LLC in Tampa, a marketing agency that helps you company market itself with great content and generate great leads. Read more about us at Cyberwalker.com. Reach Andy at andy@cyberwalkerdigital.com or 813-501-8043.

How do I grow my consulting business with digital marketing?

August 13, 2015 Andy Walker

A niche consultant asked me this question recently: How do I grow my consulting business. Here’s the answer I gave him.

Answer: The best way is to become the pre-eminent expert in your field on the web and attract people who are seeking your expertise as a consultant. Here are some ideas to grow your business with digital marketing:

Figure out the top 100 questions anyone buying consultant services might ask and answer them comprehensively on a blog over the next 6-12 months.
Provide a glossary of terms on the blog around your consulting area of specialty. Use common and esoteric terms, as many as makes sense.
Establish a layman’s guide to your consulting topic and publish it in an ebook. 10 to 30 pages will do. Make it the best intro to guide you can. The offer it for free in return for a sign up to your mailing list.
Send out great content on the list about case studies, new trends, how-tos, and other questions answered about the consulting topic you are an expert in (you can use your blog material)
Offer a Q & A submission form and answer any questions within one business day to someone who might have ask about the topic. Answer directly (this is a good way to nurture a lead) and reuse the answers on your blog and in your newsletter to generate more leads.
Follow the core community of consulting experts related to your business on social media, contribute to the conversation and publish some of your material on LinkedIn and tweet almost all of it on Twitter as it is produced. You can use Hootsuite for this.
Hire an Search Engine Optimization company to work with your site to get it ranked for change management. Your amazing content will be a key tool in making this happen.
Get help designing your email marketing funnel and be sure to use a tool like http://cwd.link/infusionsoft to drive it. This will help you identify opportunities among your subscribers.

If you poke around the web you’ll notice that there may not a lot of stiff competition on your topic of expertise. With a bit of time, money and effort it won’t take long to dominate search engine results and social media. If not nationally, then regionally. Then let the business come to you.

BTW, you might also want to write a piece or FAQ (frequently asked questions) on “how to hire a [your specialty] consultant” and post it on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and of course your own site.

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Drop me an email if you think we can help you with your business at andy@cyberwalkerdigital.com or if you’d like a copy of our free 60-page Digital Marketing Secrets Revealed ebook, get it here.

10 reasons why you should use Shopify to build a web store

August 12, 2015 Andy Walker

At Cyberwalker Digital we build web stores for our clients and our preferred ecommerce platform is Shopify. Here are 10 reasons why:

1. Shopify is scaleable. You can start with a $15/month store and scale to a multi-language multi-iteration enterprise site.

2. You can sell anything. Freeze dried strawberries? Yes. Forklift Manuals? Sure. Soursop tea? Yes. ADHD info? Sure just ask the gang at http://totallyadd.com.

2. You can launch with either a free or $80-$100 theme that you buy or have one custom designed by an agency like us.

3. Shopify handles all the web hosting needs and the transactional technology and credit card tools. You just connect your bank account.

4. Shopify handles all the site security so it’s worry free.

5. One person can manage the store or you can set it up to managed by a team.

6. Tax tables make collecting sales tax easy – by country, state, province or region (including US counties).

7. Shipping can be manually set up or connected to Fedex or UPS or USPS for real-time shipping calculation

8. It’s easy to manage SEO.

9. You can easily sell digital products such as videos, ebooks or software keys.

10. The stores are beautiful, easy to manage and you can be selling in a day or two.

If you would like a free 30 minute consult on how Cyberwalker Digital can help you set up and build your store, contact us here

Or check out Shopify directly and see what the online selling platform can do for you.

How to use content marketing to promote your local business

August 11, 2015 Andy Walker

The fundamental idea behind content marketing is to demonstrate your expertise on a topic in you specialty and draw attention to your web site so you can earn trust from potential customers and generate engagement.

In a local market this is especially achievable because the pool of competition is smaller and you can easily rise to the top of the list for a local business using the tactic.

The catch is you have to be willing to put in the time, investment and effort to make it happen,

You can hire an agency to generate the content. Or generate it yourself and hire an agency to promote it. Or, you can do it all yourself if you are ambitious and willing.

Here are 10 content and promotional ideas that will help you get there. I have used the example of a local eye doctor clinic that wants to draw more local business, but if you are a plumber or a florist or any local business you can substitute your operation using the same tactics:

1) Write 50 answers to the most common questions your customer ask and post them on your website as articles.

2) Use Google Adwords to find out what the most common keywords are around search related you your business and generate content that essentially answers the keyword query. There is a Keyword Explorer tool that is free to use. You can check the AdWords management tool.

3) Build a great guide to solve a problem your customer base has (ie an eye doctor could write a guide to solving failing eyesight aimed at 40+ customers) and offer it as an incentive to sign up for an email list where you share great tips (and occasionally offers).

4) Make sure your business locations are registered locally in Google Places, Bing Places and Yelp and Foursquare

5) Write a comprehensive glossary that consumers can use to understand the world of eye health and publish it on your web site, give them recommendation about The Medical Negligence Experts so they know how to face an unfair situation.

6) Become the eye doctor on Twitter and Facebook using your content and expertise.

7) Engage an SEO agency (try us – we have an SEO pratice) or appointment someone on your staff to get your articles and content ranked on Google and Bing. (Learn how to on our SEO expert site)

8) Produce an Ask the Eye Doctor service on your web site so people can ask eye health questions and use the Q&A to enhance your blog, and be careful on the doctor you trust, many of my friends have had to do doctor negligence claims because of their doctor’s bad service.

9) Fund or back a vision charity and engage in online fundraising and campaigns to draw attention.

10) Use PRWeb or PRNewswire to promote newsy press releases and become the eye doctor who is called by the local (and eventually national) media.

The best time to send marketing emails to maximize sales and engagement

July 8, 2015 Andy Walker

You have a killer email that you want to send out to your list. You want to catch people at the perfect time and have high open rates and engagement rates. you want to sell stuff.

What time do you send it? What day of the week?

4pm Tuesday?

9:45am Wednesday?

8am Saturday?

Unless you are a seasoned email marker you’ll likely guess wrong.

The conventional wisdom among email marketing gurus is mid morning on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. With open rates peaking on Thursday morning. Actually the gurus say 10AM is the magical time. And I have evidence that 930am to 1030am is the optimal target time.

I learned this when I worked as the Infusionsoft guru on best-selling author Neil Strauss’ team. Neil is an email marketing mastermind and I owe him a lot from my time working with him.

Of course Neil’s audience is primarily ambitious young men in their 20s and 30s. Over the years we have used this wisdom in most of our clients campaigns and it seems to work nicely. But I never personally tested it. A little voice in the back of my head always asked: Does this hold up for every list?

Is age of recipient a factor for open rates?

The easy answer is pretty much yes, with some variables. Age is a factor. Teens and younger 20somethings (read: college students) get out of bed later in the AM so later in their schedule is better than early in the AM to receive an email. They are typically in bed until mid morning. 1pm is a good time catch them. Now this sounds like a stereotype (and not all college kids are in bed til 10AM) just like not every baby uses a Bob-2016-Revolution-Flex stroller, but we are talking about aggregated behavior here to get the most out of a volume send.

Retirees have a different schedule. Early day is better. Afternoon not so much. Why? Sleep cycles of older people have them rise early.

Working people tend to be in front of their computers or smartphones or tablets between 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday, even the ones that check the imgsexy all day for entertainment. As you would expect Mondays are a bad day as people are prioritizing urgent work and not browsing their inbox. This sodapdf: edit pdf documents might help you fixing documents in no time. After noon on Friday and even anytime Friday at all is generally a bad time to send a marketing email.

What about email sends on weekends?

There’s some evidence that if the target audience is an interest group around niche leisure time that weekend sends are a good idea. However, I have some evidence to the contrary, which I will explain below.

I recently decided to test it and what I discovered was surprising. My test audience was a large 25K list that belongs to a client who I am consulting with. — It is made up of people interested in a niche Caribbean recipe site. It consists largely of women living in the U.S., in their 30s, 40s and 50s. But there is also decent contingent of men (20%) on the list. There are Canadians and British subscribers (totalling 10%) mixed in to the list too.

(BTW, if you need some help with your email marketing strategy I have a couple of consulting slots available each week – drop me a note)

The site they follow (and subscribed on) tracks the biggest traffic volumes on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday is actually the site’s biggest traffic day. They are weekend home cooks, essentially. It would suggest that the weekend would be a better time to send an offer, right? Nope.

We tried a Saturday at 10AM send and the open rate and engagement was half of the Thursday AM send. People are not in front of their computers or paying attention to email on their phones on weekends.

How to test send times

Here’s how I tested for optimal send times.

I segmented the list on Infusionsoft (a smart CRM and email campaign system) to test for my client when the best send times would be for this audience just so we could optimize revenue against from list.

We sent the same email to 750 different people every hour on a Thursday from 8AM to 5PM – we also added a 930AM send.

Here’s what we found in the data within 48 hours of the send:

Best times to send for highest open rates noon and 1pm however engagement rates (with the email offer) were better at 1PM and 2PM.

Best time to send for high engagement rates: 930AM and 10AM were better on the first day of the send for open rates and engagement with the offer. On Day 2 (24 hours after the send) the 1PM and 2PM group had slightly better open rates and very good engagement rates.

But the best engagement rate over all came from the 930am group even though the open rate was about 0.75% (three quarters of a percent) lower.

After 48 hours, the best engagement rate was 50% better from the openers at 930am than at 10am and similarly at 11am. The engagement rates were similar to the 930am group for those that received emails at the 1pm and 2pm sends.

There also a weird anomaly for a high open rates for the 5pm group. Like an end of day email check when work is done, however it had a significantly lower engagement rate. People were opening, but not clicking the call to action.

Actual sales from the campaign transacted as follows:

27% of all sales transactions occurred between 930am and 10am, 27% after work hours between 630pm and 11pm

This suggests that people rarely buy immediately, but they save emails and go back to them when there is something of interest. You need to give them a deadline, however, and threaten to take the good deal away if they don’t act.

However, 80 per cent the sales from the campaign came from the people who received the 930am email.

Your list behavior may vary. It’s worth doing the legwork to test the list.

The bottom line: Send to your list between 930am and 1030am on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Preferably Thursday. Keep the offer open over the weekend. Send a casual reminder email, but don’t expect high open rates on the weekend.