The Taoist Approach to Email Sync

I’ve heard a lot of people obsess over when to send emails to their list.

And I have read entire chapters in books devoted to this topic.

Some people say that it is better to send them in the morning. Many readers check their email first thing, so you want to be at the top of the list.

Similar reasoning applies to emails at lunchtime, emails on the way home, and emails at night.

Then they turn around and pretend they’ve said something useful, instead of ‘almost any time, actually.’

Excellent. Send your emails whenever you want, I guess.

But it gets worse than that.

When should your emails go around the world?
One time I almost enrolled in a marketing course. This little anecdote is not the reason why I decided not to do it, some things didn’t work out, but it’s more fun if I say yes.

Anyway, the sales letter for this formation said these two things, with complete sincerity.

“We provide this elite online training to students in more than 50 countries around the world.”

AND:

“We have our weekly FAQ at 2:00 pm, which is a convenient way to end the afternoon.”

Sigh…

You know, sometimes it’s frustrating living in Australia. Every time a movie or project is released “next spring” we have to ask ourselves, do they mean fall then? And when something comes “on the 10th”, it’s actually the 11th for us.

Minor inconveniences, for sure.

But these kinds of things really take the cake.

Are the meetings at 2 pm? Excellent. Whose is 14:00? They didn’t even include a time zone with that…

As it turned out, that very convenient ‘afternoon meeting’ was at 4 am my time. Yeah.

Many marketers boast that they know their prospects inside and out… but forget that they live in different time zones.

This goes back to your emails. Maybe you decide you want to capture the morning vibes with a 6am email, but whose 6am is it? Because it’s always early in the morning, late in the afternoon, and in the dead of night somewhere.

No time is the right time
But maybe you have a local business, so all your readers are in one time zone. What then huh?

There is a sensible but paradoxical philosophy in Taoism. Hints of it appear in other religions, definitely Buddhism as well.

The Taoists say it like this:

No Path is the Path.

Translation:

If someone shows you ‘the Way’ (to enlightenment, let’s say), then it’s not the Way. The Path cannot be displayed or encoded. You have to find it by yourself. There is only as far as dogma, gurus and teaching can take you.

The answer can never come from outside.

So if you hear an answer, it’s not the correct one.

Similarly, no time can be the right time. Let’s say someone discovers that indeed, 6 am is the perfect time to send an email. After a month, everyone blows up their lists and drowns each other.

Meanwhile, the email that arrives 12 hours ‘late’ stands out.

So don’t worry. Send them whenever you want.

Besides…

I doubt it matters much anyway. People read emails that are interesting, persuasive and informative, not those that come at the right time.

Focus on annotating your writing, rather than chasing a little spur of the moment.

“Target, wait, timing does matter to me!”
On the other hand, some of you will need to focus on your schedule.

If you advertise lunchtime flash sales for your restaurant, you probably want to send them at 11am or noon, not at night.

Lighter emails may best arrive on Wednesday (from people looking for a mid-week break), Friday (just because), or on the weekend.

Business emails probably want to go out during business hours. Maybe. Who knows?

If your business has a niche relationship at the moment, I invite you to find out for yourself. Don’t ask your readers, they’ll probably tell you to send less email simply because they hate spam. Test it. Experiment with different times and see what leads to sales.

But for most companies, timing doesn’t matter that much.

The point, which I have spent over 600 words on, is that this is not worth thinking too much about. They are small potatoes. Get your offer and message right, and everything else will fall into place.

I’ve only written an article about this because a lot of people ask. So wonder no more.