People often ask about what is the best time of year for email marketing. However, the answer is never what they expect because like most things marketing, the answer completely depends on the products and/or services you’re promoting plus your audience. It may get old hearing that answer – but the fact is, your audience and your product matters greatly.

1. Off-Time Sales – If you have a shop that is mostly frequented in the summertime, then you want to create an email series for the off time. An example often used is the tanning shop. Sending out email marketing campaigns to tanners during the winter can help bring those tanners back during the off time so they don’t wait for spring break to start their tans.

2. In Advance of a Holiday – Don’t wait until the month of the holiday to start your email marketing for a sale or event during that holiday. You want to work toward the excitement over about a 90-day period. So get your auto series completed to start marketing 90 days prior to the event, whatever it is, for the very best results.

3. Your Audience’s Schedule – You are the only one who knows your audience inside and out. You know their “on” times and their “off” times. Ensure that you are promoting hard during their off times, as well as promoting more carefully during the times they typically engage more so that you don’t turn them off.

4. Understand the Holidays – Each audience celebrates and likes different holidays than another audience. Know which ones your audience loves. If you have to, send out a survey to find out which are important to them so that you can arrange to have sales and other celebratory events during these special times for your audience.

5. Little-Known Holidays – Sometimes it’s fun to have a sale during a little-known holiday event. You can educate your audience on something new at the same time as offering a special during that time. Creating an email series around that one event will educate, inform, and bring new life to your email marketing.

6. All Year Long – The most successful email marketing never stops. It occurs all year long but takes into consideration the calendar, your audience’s beliefs, desires, needs, and schedules. There is a saying that works well in this case and it’s “always be marketing.” Never stop, any time of the year. The great thing about email marketing is that it can work even while you’re on vacation. With proper planning, it never stops.

7. Test Your Market – To know when the best times of year to send email marketing messages to your audience, it’s important to conduct tests. After sending marketing messages for an entire year to your audience you can use the data collected to see, at least for that year and your audience, what time of the year most of the emails were opened and when most of the click throughs and purchasing happened. Use that as your guide for the future.

8. Don’t Give Up on Off Times – Even if you notice a pattern for when your audience is reading, opening and responding to your emails, it doesn’t mean that you should give up during the “off” times. Instead, you’ll want to redouble your efforts during these times. Mix up your subject lines, get more direct, and try harder.

In effect, the best time of year to send your email marketing messages to your audience is really all year long. But, as with most industries, there will be off times for opening and following through of your email marketing messages. Those are the times you should work even harder to get more sales and up your email marketing exponentially to get the results you want.