Timing is everything

Timing is everything. You’ve heard it when you walk up to a fast food counter,  and breakfast is no longer being served.  So perhaps it’s more accurate to say good timing is everything.  So many times it seems that had you shown up five minutes earlier, called two days later, or whenever was the “right” time, your outcome may have  been different.

Of course, the right timing is also key in communications. For instance, if you are promoting an event, you want to send out calendar listings and email blasts with plenty of lead time, but not too much lead time so that the event gets buried. If you have an enewsletter or a printed newsletter, you also want to make sure that any highlighted events don’t happen before the newsletter gets to its audience.  I know this seems like plain common sense, and yet how many times have you gotten an invitation that is not timed right?

Another aspect is when to send things out. In media relations, if you want to bury some news, you release the news on Friday. Same goes for a press conference. Often, you don’t reach out to broadcast venues during busy times in the broadcast day cycle (right before the evening news for example).

Good timing is about finding the right time to reach your audience, or when your audience will be most receptive.  I would never send out an enewsletter on Monday. Why? Because Mondays are catch up days, and people are busy getting back into the groove of the work week.

Consider your audience and what works best in order to figure out the right time to communicate.