What is the best day and time to send a local newsletter?

We started sending around 8 AM. Then we moved to 7:30, then 7. Now we send at about 6:10 or 6:15 in the morning.

What time should a local newsletter go out?

Early. Almost everybody I see sends around 6 to 6:30 AM. People are getting up, and you want to be one of the first emails in their box.

A couple of operators send at 11:30 to catch people at lunch. One or two send at night. Even as a reader, I'm not looking at a local newsletter at night. My instinct is to do what's working for me and almost everybody else: 6 to 6:30.

Each move earlier was a test, and I still treat send time as a variable, not a law. I'll admit I haven't tested other times much.

Which day of the week?

Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. If you're only sending once a week, why would you pick Monday morning, or even Friday?

My 20-plus local newsletters each go out once a week at 6 AM, and pretty much all of them land on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. We stagger them across those days mostly for workload, so the team isn't building every issue on the same day.

What if your open rate suddenly drops?

Try moving the day. One of my newsletters had its open rate drop a ton for no clear reason. We investigated, and other publishers told me something weird like that happens to them occasionally.

When we moved a different newsletter from Wednesday to Thursday, things got better. So we moved this one to Thursday too. I'd rather try the change than wait for a perfect explanation.

Which day should events go out?

"Thursdays are the event day, because people are planning their weekend."

Cadence follows the reader's planning window. If you send more than once a week, give each day its own theme and make Thursday the events day.

Then package the same events as a weekend carousel on social. A guest on my podcast reported her weekend events carousel got almost 40,000 views and more engagement, versus about 9,000 for the same events posted as a reel.

Why events get the prime slot: in my surveys about 80% of subscribers say events matter most to them. Restaurants are usually second.

Does each day need a different theme?

If you send more than once a week, having a different style or topic each day makes a lot of sense. A deep-dive day. An events day. Readers learn what's coming and you aren't cramming everything into one long issue. See how often to send for a sample week.

Who should the email come from?

A person. I switched my newsletters to "Firstname at Brand" as the sender name. The newsletter my wife writes comes from her first name at Leander Scoop.

You're humanizing things, which is what people want. A brand name alone looks like every other marketing email in the inbox. A first name looks like a neighbor.

What about the subject line?

Its only job, along with the preview text, is to get the open. Keep it to one line in the inbox, two at most. Never four. Everything I check before hitting send is in my pre-send checklist.