4 Ways To Improve Email Open Rates?
April 12, 2010While you should always be seeking to improve in every area of your business, some areas are most important than others. One area that can have a big impact on your online business over time is your email open rates.
Here’s some things I do to improve my email open rates:
1. Subject Line. This is the most important part of your email. If the subject line doesn’t catch the reader’s interest they won’t bother with the email. Notice what other successful email marketers are using for their subject lines. What I have found is that it’s important to state the biggest benefit of the email’s content but at the same time keep the subject line as short as possible. For example, if I’m promoting a free ebook I might write this: “FREE Ebook – $47 Value!”
2. Email Content. Keep your email structure consistent, uniform and tidy. Open rates increase and stay steady if your readers recognise that you always present your content in the same way. That’s why McDonalds is so popular; it doesn’t matter where you go in the world, Big Macs are always the same!
Keep the width of your sentences short (about 50 characters long) and break up your content into short paragraphs and with subheadings if required.
If you’re using Aweber, I recommend that you write up both a html and plain text version of your emails. With html you can create short, anchor-text, bolded links (which get better click-throughs) and you’ll want to have a plain text version for the readership that don’t want to receive html emails.
3. Be Consistent. Decide how regularly you are going to email your list and keep to your schedule. This one of the best ways to build trust with your readers and maintain a great email open rate. If you mail out daily, make sure you don’t miss a day (this is made easier with autoresponders). If weekly, don’t miss a week.
Many times I have had email marketers tell me that they didn’t email their list for a few weeks and then when they started again, the responsiveness of the list was terrible.
Don’t be afraid to mail regularly. Daily is not too much if your content is good and relevant to your readership.
4. Testing. Make sure you test every single email before you send it out to your list. Make sure that there are no spelling and other grammatical errors. I cringe every time I see an email where the personalization field has been incorrectly used, e.g. ‘Hi {firstname}’ instead of ‘Hi John’. Your readers will open that email fast… to look for the unsubscribe link!
Test that all the links work properly. Here’s an important tip: make sure it doesn’t end up in your junk email folder. If it does, change some of the words that might be causing it to happen and test again.
Personally, I don’t like to change words like ‘free’ and ‘money’ to ‘f.ree’ or ‘m.oney’ in order to pass spam filters. I think it looks very unprofessional. Instead I use alternatives like ‘gift’ or ‘profits’.
Making a few changes here and there can increase the email open rate percentage dramatically… which in turn means a dramatic increase in profits!
Spoken from a true expert
The subject line is IMPORTANT, infact it’s the most important part of your email, always test. I find that taking out personalization like “firstname” etc get a better response. And lately I’ve been testing this, writing my email titles and email copy just as if I was talking to someone at a party, keeping it real and writing plain and simple, the more the hype in emails the worse it does. Great post John…
.-= Terrance Charles´s last blog ..5 Ways to Ensure Your Social Media Marketing Doesn’t Bomb… =-.
Thanks Terrance… personalization will improve open rates.
My experience has been to mix things up a bit, e.g. don’t always put the {!firstname} personalization field at the beginning of each subject line. As you said, write your emails the way you would talk to someone.
These days most of my squeeze pages only ask for email addresses (to improve optin rates).
Practical doable tips. Getting emails opened is one of the biggest challenges we face. I especially liked the tip about putting the biggest benefit in the subject line. Thanks!
precisely! those are the e-mail Etiquettes very important. I do maintain my email coz i don’t want to see them stack on my files, once it was advertisement i just erase them on my list. Checking email regularly, should be a habit.
.-= Ray Jasper Palmer´s last blog ..BankrollMob’s WSOP FREEROLLS: Yesterday’s winners (19/4) =-.
Good post John – first time I have been here, picked your site up from Google.
A neglected part that people dont seem to do is the relationship building part. So a varied approach such as videos and surveys to get your readership talking to you has got to be the way to go.
Regards
Pete
.-= Peter Davies´s last blog ..Reasons Why Email Marketing is Better Than Print Advertising =-.
Very true Peter… I just set up a whiteboard in the office because I want to do more training videos for my subscribers.
Hi John,
If you don’t mind what does open rates simply mean? I’m familiar with opt-in, email delivery rate, and bounce rate but this term i don’t have idea. I’ll be waiting for your answer.
Thanks,
Sandra
Email Spam Blacklist´s last [type] ..3 Effective Ways to Increase Email Delivery Rates
Hi Sandra,
Email open rates refers to how many subscribers actually open the email after they receive it. For example, if you broadcast an email to 200 subscribers and 100 of them open the email, your open rate for that broadcast is 50%.
Thanks,
John
Hi John,
Thanks for answering my question. Now I understand
Good Day.
Thanks,
Sandra
Email Spam Blacklist´s last [type] ..3 Effective Ways to Increase Email Delivery Rates