Bulk email marketing is the technique of sending bulk emails to a large database of email addresses in the hope of eliciting sales. Considering that there are parallels to this activity in the offline world like advertising, there must also be some rules of when the activity must occur. Obviously, it makes no sense to send bulk emails well before the launch of the product or before the infrastructure is in place, and it obviously makes no sense to start a campaign well after the product is known in the offline world. Beyond these basic rules, the art of sending the right mail, at the right time, to the right people is largely based on simple common sense.

The first thing to remember about marketing promotions is that timing is everything and this means that the entire advertising activity has to be in a certain balance with the nature of the product. Assuming that the entire supply chain infrastructure is in place as well as all the financial aspects of internet transacting, the next stage is to start sending mails and starting the internet advertising campaign. This is the gold standard for most marketing campaigns. The exception to this rule is when you have an exciting new product that the world has never seen. In this case, the bulk email marketing campaign must start well before and perhaps eat into the time of infrastructure setup.

The offline promotional efforts go a long way to dictate when you send bulk emails as well. Ideally, one should not precede the other but in case the bulk of your promotional spend is going the way of traditional advertising then it makes sense to allow the offline component to begin first.

There is a lot to be said about anticipating periods of great need among the market. This is the reason why marketers start sending bulk emails as Christmas approaches or when there is an outbreak of a disease of some sort.

Vacation time is one aspect that you also have to consider. There is no point in campaigning when all your recipients are on vacation as this is the time when the really don't want to consider purchasing anything. However, this rule does not apply if you are selling holidays themselves.

In these guidelines, you would have noticed that the supply chain and the transacting setups have to be in place. While this might seem obvious, this is where an entire bulk email marketing effort can go to waste. There are some levels of fine tuning you can do to ensure that when you send bulk emails, the supply chain is in its final stages of coming together but this is really just brinkmanship. Be prudent and try not to take any chances as there is nothing more irritating than you sending bulk emails, the client getting excited, and being able to buy the product.

At the end of the day, knowing the proper time to send your bulk emails makes the difference between success and failure.