Here at Leapfrogg, we have a panel of over 1000 retail consumers that we engage with on a regular basis to help us understand customer needs and expectations from the brands and retailers they buy from.

Every month, we question them on a range of areas from buying behaviours and brand opinion, to emotional purchase triggers and their recent shopping experiences.

The Insight Edit is our weekly bite size edit of the insight we gain from our panel in our search to truly understand the mind of the premium customer.

Mobile has grown significantly in recent years, and with that, the reliance on email has become a significant driver of revenue. For that reason, this month we wanted to ask our Premium Panel how they view and engage with email marketing from brands and retailers.

Firstly, we asked them what time of day they were most likely to open and read emails from their favourite brands and 75% of our respondents stated that after dinner and early morning were their preferred time.

The next most popular time was the mid-morning break or at lunchtimes. 45% of our panel said they liked to read emails during their morning commute and we found that the age and gender of our panelists didn’t affect the number of people who selected the commute as their preferred time.

During the weekends, there was a more even spread of times that people were most likely to check their email.  Breakfast and mid-morning were the most popular times for over 75% of our respondents.

We then looked at the devices that were most likely to be used at the times which were most popular. Not surprisingly mobile was the device of choice during in the morning and during the commute with 84% of respondents likely to use their mobile to check email at these times.

During the lunch break, there was a more even split between reading emails on mobile and desktop, but in the evenings tablet and desktop computers were far more prevalent with 83% of respondents using them to read marketing emails at that time.

At the weekends, apart from breakfast time, desktops were the most popular platform to view email throughout the day with tablets coming a close second.

What these statistics show us is that one customer may use multiple devices to view email at different points in the week. It is, therefore, key that retailers have a completely responsive email template that adapts seamlessly to the device it is opened on.

Those who are able to gain similar data from their own customer base should look to adapt their email marketing strategy to send more visual or content rich emails during the weekend as they are more likely to be viewed on a desktop computer or tablet.

Understanding your customers’ email habits has never been more important. Don’t rely on the data of previous emails, but also ask your customers what their preferred habits are.