Do you want to grow your email open rate? Your email marketing efforts will be effective only if they are opened first. If your open rates are lower than desired, here are ten ways to improve them.
1. Keep your email list clean
Have your subscribers always wanted to hear from you? You've probably heard that it's important to email your subscribers regularly, so your list stays fresh. But even so, over time, email followers can still become stale. Some people may have changed their email accounts or may no longer be interested in your brand.
So, to keep your list fresh with engaged followers, you should periodically remove inactive subscribers. An inactive subscriber can be anyone who has not checked emails in the last six months or more.
But before you get free of them, try sending out an engaging email campaign to re-engage your inactive subscribers. For example, Carol Tice sends one final email to her inactive subscribers, saying, "Am I boring you? and asks them if he still wants to continue the subscription. Some responded, but others were purged.
Here's an example of a last-minute email from HubSpot:
You can use the main subject line, "Is the love over?" "Not you, but me." If you're feeling really brave, you can write, "Do you hate me or not?" Another way to keep your list up to date is to contact your subscribers occasionally and ask you if they would like to update their interests and information. That way, they are reminded that they can control how they want to interact with you. Finally, try surveying if you're trying to restore a cold list. In exchange for answering your questions, they will receive a gift That kills two birds with one stone:
It inspires them to interact with you and gives you the information you need to continue interacting with them with content they'll love.
2. Segment your list
When people decide whether to open an email, one of the main factors is whether they think the email is relevant to them. What is the best scenario to increase the relevance of your emails? By segmenting your mailing list. Lyris found that 39% of marketers segmenting their email lists saw higher open rates, 28% lower unsubscribe rates, 24% better deliverability, and higher revenue:
You can start by adding tags to subscribers based on their behaviour, such as purchase behaviour. So when someone becomes a paying consumer, you send them different emails than you would send someone who hasn't purchased anything. You can also send different emails based on specific products they have purchased. You can also segment your list based on demographics (such as location) or interests. For example, how did they get on your mailing list in the first place?
If they downloaded one of your opt-in returns on a specific topic, create a section of those people so you can send them more emails on that particular topic. Once you have these segments in place, it will be easier to know what main lines and messages to write to get them to open and interact with your email marketing campaigns.
(On a related note, engage your email subscribers organically—never rely on paid lists, or your campaign's relevance will plummet.)
3. Avoid spam filters
Spam filters have become more sophisticated recently, but they must be perfect. As a result, your emails, even your best emails, can still get stuck in the spam folder and will never see the daylight.
If you want to increase the open rate of your email marketing campaigns, you'll need to do everything possible to avoid being flagged as spam. Here are some best practices to prevent your email from falling into the spam folder:
- Make sure all recipients have agreed to receive your email.
- Submit your campaign from a good IP address; i.e. the IP address has not been used by someone else who has previously spammed.
- Send via verified domain.
- Keep all code clean.
- Use unified tags to customize "To:
- Your campaign field. • Show the subscribers how to whitelist your emails, and you can ask them to add you to their address book.
- Avoid excessive use of "commercial" language (these are spam trigger words like "clearance", "buy", "discount", or "cash").
- Don't try to "catch and change" using misleading subject lines.
- Include your location.
- Includes an easy way for subscribers to unsubscribe from your emails.
4. Perfect your time
Timings affect whether or not subscribers open your emails, so think carefully about the time and date you send your emails. You will need more time to pinpoint an ideal time, but do some A/B testing to determine which timeframes work best and explore them in future campaigns. But you might be wondering if anyone else has done some testing that you might benefit from.
Data from MailChimp indicates that, in general, the best time of the week to send emails is on weekdays rather than weekends. Therefore, there is no date to win the hand. They also found that the optimal time of day to send an email is 10:00 a.m. in the recipient's time zone. However, upon further research, they discovered that the type of content sent significantly affected peak times and the recipient's location, age, and occupation and logically, this makes sense:
These factors will influence when they are most likely to check email and the type of email they want to check at any given time. (For example, entertainment-related content may be checked earlier, before work, while work-related emails are more likely to be checked during business hours.)
But consider some additional data. First, according to data from Experian, the best time of the week to open is on weekdays (they agree with MailChimp): The best time for an email, according to their report, is in the afternoon:
If we analyze these two reports from MailChimp and Experian, the best days to send emails are certainly during the weekdays and the best times are early enough in the day. Still, the bottom line about email delivery time is:
Visualize a day in the life of your particular audience. What do they do in the morning, afternoon and evening? What is their working day like? What time do they stay up at night? What time do they wake up in the morning? These questions will help you decide the best time to send an email.
5. Make your subject line stand out
When it comes to open email rates, your subject line is everything. Your job is to make your subject line stand out. Unfortunately, businesses have been using email marketing for years, often duplicating the same subject line phrases. As a result, these common subject lines often come out as white noise. As a result, you'll need to be more creative with your subject lines to stand out from the competition.
Here are some tips for creating creative subject lines:
- Create curiosity, but don't be too smart. You want to make them strange enough to open but not so mysterious that subscribers have no idea what you're talking about. • Insert numbers. There's something about numbers that catch the eye.
- Use a cheerful, pleasant or conversational tone.
- Speak in the language and style your subscribers use, especially when talking to their friends.
- For some great examples, we've written an entire article on the best converting email subject lines.
6. Only write for one person
When creating your subject line and the message body, you should think about the thousands of people who are about to receive it. However, it is much more effective if you write as if talking about a specific person with a personal subject and personalized message.
To write this way, you need to know your buyer persona. You must understand their problems, desires, values, likes and dislikes. If you're having trouble with this, email a quick five-minute chat request. During the call, you can ask questions that help you understand the subscriber's needs and thoughts. Spending a day or two chatting with your followers will be a good amount of time as it will help you a lot: Not only with your message but also with the creation or improvement of your products and services.
7. Write like a friend
You must put your company hat aside and write like a friend when writing emails. That is the only way to entice your followers and get them to open your emails.
For example, a business phrase like "We offer savings to our customers!" passes as far as suffocating. A friendlier alternative might be, "you need to see this offer. That makes the email much more personal and reduces the risk of your recipient deleting your message and moving on.
Here's another example of Dmitry Dragilev's friendly clone:
Remember:
Everyone is looking for a reason not to open their email in the information age. They are not looking for a reason to read them. But if you approach them personally, you have a much better chance of being exposed.
8. Write great content every time
You've won the battle when a user opens your email. So why is it important for the actual content of your email so? Your email content is critical to open rates because if your subscribers are pleased with your write-up, they will be more likely to open your emails. They may even start anticipating your emails.
Conversely, suppose subscribers are unsatisfied with what they receive in your emails. In that case, they may not open your emails again and may even unsubscribe. So how do you ensure your subscribers are happy with your email content? Homely:
Make it great.
Links to incredibly valuable resources, such as free eBooks, epic blog posts, or webinars. It is important to ensure you are not sending emails to send emails. Every time you email your list, you must offer something of value. The higher the value of each email you write, the more loyal your customers will become, and your open rates will also increase.
9. Add a little humour
Humour has a way of establishing a strong and immediate connection with people. It's personal, it's entertaining, and it's etched in people's minds. But what if you're not a very funny person? Isn't it always easy to be smart or funny and try to put your efforts within the tight constraints of email subject lines? It can be challenging.
You don't have to be a comedian to send a funny email. What's more important is that you deeply understand your email recipients. Knowing their likes and dislikes will make it much easier to tell or include a joke. Remember those last-minute emails we suggested in point 1? Here is an interesting example:
Hi [name], I tried contacting you about [value proposition] but have yet to respond. Let me know if:
- You're ready, and I shouldn't bother you anymore.
- You are interested but have yet to respond. 3. I should follow up after three months.
- A hippo is chasing you, and you need me to call Animal Control.
- You can also insert a fun animated GIF to express your point of view. For example, if you're feeling ambitious, you can create a funny video to include in your email.
10. Don't Forget Your Mobile Users
According to an email Monday, mobile email accounts for 15-70% of all emails opened (depending on your target email, product, and audience type). BlueHornet says 67.2% of customers use smartphones to check their email. You can't ignore your mobile users - you have to engage them.
The obvious advice here is to make sure your emails are mobile-friendly (with responsive formats and loadable media), but also consider that mobile screens are smaller, so the Long audience lines won't appear on mobile devices. In addition to keeping your subject line short, here are some additional tips to attract mobile users:
- Keep the format simple (one column), under 600px wide.
- Use larger fonts – small fonts are hard to read on mobile devices.
- Don't assume images are displayed (Android disables images by default). Instead, make sure it looks good without them.
- Use smaller images to reduce loading time.
- Use large call-to-action buttons: Larger buttons are easier to press with your thumb.
- Never place two links next to or above each other. This way, the user won't accidentally hit the wrong one.
These tips can help any campaign achieve better open rates but be encouraged if you see an immediate change. Email marketing is an art and science also, so give yourself some time to experiment and find the best tactics for your business and subscribers.