Good Morning Email Deals!

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It's the holidays, and if you're a marketer or a consumer (or likely both for ClickZ readers), shopping is at the forefront of your minds. With the rise of smartphones, mobile addiction is increasing, and the way consumers interact with email is beginning to vary. Understanding what that engagement looks like can help you find the right moment in time when your emails and offers will resonate most with your customers.

How many of you roll over in the morning, grab your phone, and check your email? I know that I am not alone in this behavior. There is a growing group of folks who are opening their email first thing in the morning, and actually converting. So let your email messages rise and shine - and wake up your consumer! How do you make this happen? It isn't actually too difficult. Here are there easy steps to letting the early email bird get the conversion worm:

1. Look at the last six months of email engagement data, isolating an audience who has opened and clicked on a specified number of email communications during the morning (rise and shine) hours as determined by their time zone.
2. Examine the behavior of this audience. Is there certain content that they gravitate toward? Are there thematic subject lines that grab their attention more than others? Are they converting or spending more time on the site than others? Get to know these folks and what motivates them. It wouldn't hurt to look at the demographic/psychographic profile of this group either - do they skew more female, parents, etc.?
3. Create content that addresses this audience specifically - and provide them with some sort of added incentive or benefit for engaging with you early in the morning. Maybe it's a 15 percent discount or free shipping for all orders placed before 9 a.m. You should test the incentive to see what best motivates your audience, but giving them a reason to pay attention to your emails in the morning is a good way to train them to expect your messages at the same time every morning.

The goal here is to create or drive an incremental behavior that would not have otherwise occurred. So be sure to maintain a control group and test the performance of the test group against it - if you are only driving conversions that would have happened anyway, it doesn't much matter. However, you may find that you are able to increase sales by reaching your customers before they get distracted by the day's activities - or offers from your competitors.

Alarm Clock image on home page via Shutterstock.