Have you ever wondered if there’s an ideal time to publish a blog post, make a cold call, send an email, or post on social media? While there are some exceptions, studies have shown that certain days and times are more effective when it comes to executing your lead generation strategies.
If you’re not aware of these times, here are some best practices to help you get the most out of your outbound and inbound lead generation.
Outbound Lead Generation: Timing Best Practices
Making Cold Calls
To maximize your cold calling results, the best time to place your calls is on Wednesdays and Thursdays between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. This is the timeframe when you’ll be most likely to reach a decision-maker, which will help you secure more sales appointments. According to recent data, you’ll get the most engagement between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m.
Sending Cold Emails
Similar to making cold calls, if you’re going to send out cold emails, you’ll get more opens and responses on Thursdays between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. However, you’ll also need to create emails with high-quality content that captures and holds attention. Since a cold audience may not already be familiar with your brand, you’ll need to deliver immediate value to your recipients.
Distributing Email Newsletters
Even the most effective email campaigns need to be sent at the right time in order to reach their full potential. Generally speaking, you’ll get more opens when your emails are sent during the day. Email inboxes tend to clutter up fast, and if you send emails at night, your recipients may not see them in the morning.
As for the day, avoid sending emails on Mondays and weekends. Mondays are usually hectic, and people are busy on the weekends. However, this is just a general rule; you may see different results in your industry. Do your own market research if these days and times don’t seem to be working for you.
Inbound Lead Generation: Timing Best Practices
Sharing Blogs Posts
Whether you’re posting new blogs to your website or sharing existing ones across social media, there are ideal times and other best practices that will get your content read by more people.
Blog post timing—
When your goal is getting your blogs read, the best time to post on your company website is on Mondays at 11:00 a.m. EST. If you’re looking to get your blog posts shared on social media, the best time to publish is in the afternoon around 3:00 p.m. EST.
Sharing frequency—
When sharing your blogs to social media, create a consistent schedule for posting your content. Don’t just share a bunch of blogs and then post no content for weeks or months. Even though it’s “just blog posting,” doing this with consistency will demonstrate to your market that you’re trustworthy and reliable.
Publishing frequency—
Ideally, you’ll want to publish three to four new blogs each week so that Google will recognize your site as a source of fresh content. This will help your website rank higher in the SERPs.
Share Social Media Posts
While it’s not an exact science, there are ideal times to post to various social media platforms. Here are some of those times by social media platform:
- Facebook: 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays
- Instagram: 11:00 a.m. on Wednesdays
- Twitter: 8:00 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays
- LinkedIn: 9:00 a.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays
While there are ideal times for posting to each social media platform, your results will be based on your particular market. For instance, you might not benefit from posting to Instagram if you’re a professional plumber. Your potential customers aren’t going to want to look at photos of plumbing jobs or related subjects throughout the day.
However, if you’re running a plumbing DIY blog, that’s different. In that case, your audience will probably love seeing photos of plumbing jobs, hardware, and projects gone bad.
Social media can be a powerful platform to generate leads, but it only works when you post quality content. Avoid posting just to take up space or fill out a schedule. Make sure your posts always provide value to your audience.
Lead Follow Up: Timing Best Practices
Follow-up emails are an integral part of every lead generation campaign. Most people won’t buy right away and need to be reminded of the opportunity. The best practice for sending follow-up emails is to send them three to five business days after your last contact with a decision-maker.
However, the content of your follow-up emails will change based on where your prospect is in the buying process. For example, you wouldn’t want to send an email with a hard sell sales letter to a prospect who is still doing research and nowhere near ready to buy.
Always make sure that your follow-up emails are both sent at the right time and appropriately written for your prospects. This is where segmentation will help you the most. When you segment your audience according to where they are in the buying process, you’ll know each contact is getting the appropriate email.
Just like emails, your follow-up phone calls should be made three to five business days after your last contact with a decision-maker. Follow-up phone calls also need to be tailored for each prospect. When you have an experienced sales team, they’ll know exactly how to reach leads based on where they are in the buyer’s journey.
You can support your sales team in their efforts by using a powerful CRM application that keeps track of your email contacts, manages your email marketing segmentation and automation, and integrates tracking your sales calls as well. With this type of all-in-one solution, your sales team will always have access to the latest information on each lead, including whether they’ve moved along in the buyer’s journey based on which segments they’ve been assigned.
Key Takeaways
Lead generation is crucial to your marketing strategy; however, it’s important to implement your strategies at the right time for maximum results. Various studies show that there are certain days and times that generate better results for different lead generation strategies, so it’s important to follow them for the best results.
Managing a lead generation strategy can be stressful and confusing, but it doesn’t have to be that way. At Abstrakt Marketing Group, we stay up to date with the best days and times to connect with decision-makers and share digital marketing content, providing you with the best results.
When you’re ready to get the best results from your outbound and inbound lead generation efforts, contact the business growth specialists at Abstrakt!
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