One of the best ways to increase email marketing campaign performance is to increase your email open rates.
But how do you effectively improve your open rates?
Before I go through the email marketing tricks you can use, it is worth breaking down an email into certain key components.
(Be sure to read to the end for a super simple bonus tip you can use to increase your email open rates.)
Anatomy of an Email
Subject Line – Your subject line is the most important part of your email. Why? Because it is the first thing people see and it is the key to getting people to open your emails. The purpose of the Subject Line is to get people to open your email.
Email Content – The next most important part of your email is of course your content or the message you are trying to convey. The purpose of your Email Content is to create interest or desire and then get your reader to take action.
Email Form – Whether you opt for simpler text-based emails or you design a good looking email with images and styling, your Email Form is important. The purpose of your Email Form is to make reading your email easy as well as to present your message in a positive light.
How to Increase Your Email Open Rates
The first place to start when your want to increase your email open rates is your subject line. There is no magic formula for creating subject lines with high open rates but there are a few best practices and tricks.
- Know Your Audience – take the time to learn more about your audience’s needs, wants and problems. This is a continuing process. The better you know your audience the more you will be able to create subject lines that connect with them.
- Play with Subject Line Themes – subject line themes include Mystery (creates a need to know urge), FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), Funny (people love to be entertained), Pain-Point (can trigger a response). There are too many themes to cover in this article but it is worth testing some of the above and seeing what works. If you are good with point 1 then point too should be easier.
- A/B Test Your Subject Line – If you have a sizable list and your emailing tool supports it, then it is worthwhile to run an A/B test for your subject line on a portion of your mailing list and see which line works best. Then you can use the winning line when sending to your full list and you shoud receive better performance.
- Stay on Topic – make sure your email content is related to your subject line and keep it clear and to the point. If your subject line and email content are not related you can annoy your subscribers who may feel tricked. Get to the point fast and show as much value as you can. Most people get a lot of emails and you need to stand out and reward your reader for taking the time to read your email.
- Include a Call-To-Action – the whole purpose fo sending emails is to get your readers to do something, so make sure you tell them what you want them to do. Click a link, reply to your email, just make sure there is an action to be done.
- Make it Simple or Attractive – when it comes to email form there are two approaches. Either you keep your email form simple and text based which tends to increase open rates especially for gmail addresses. Or you make sure your email form really looks great and commands attention and creates interest.
Now you may be asking what points 4, 5 and 6 have to do with how to increase your email open rates.
These points may not directly increase open rates on individual emails but done well they help to build certain expectations with your readers as well as trust.
If your readers get value from your emails regularly they will tend to open new emails from you and thus your average open rates will improve.
Increase Your Email Open Rates (Bonus Tip)
Improving your email open rates takes time and practice and the ability to observe. There is however a trick you can use to increase open rates quickly.
Resend Emails – To effectively resend an email you need to have the ability to segment your email lists. What you can do then is 24 hours after you send an email you create a segment of those who ‘did not open’ and you resend your email to those people.
This can easily increase your open rates by another 10% or more. It isn’t a perfect solution as sometimes the accuracy in determining who open your emails is not perfect but it is still very useful and I personally use it quite successfully.
Need Help Increasing Your Email Marketing Performance?
Get in touch with SME Rocket today and we’ll help you buidl better email campaigns that reach more subscribers and drive more sales.
