Six Strategies to Improve Your Email Open Rates
Though it’s not as en vogue as SEO or social media marketing, the truth is that email marketing remains the most effective marketing channel today, promising the highest ROI at $42 back for every dollar spent.
However, before you can reap the benefits, you have to get your subscribers in front of your emails so they can enjoy your awesome content and make their way to your website by clicking on CTA (call-to-action) links. But how can you make it past that first hurdle, and encourage more subscribers to open your emails?
Email open rate: the # of emails opened ÷ the total # of emails delivered
*This does not include emails that bounced and never made it to the recipient's inbox.
First things first, what is considered a decent email open rate?
The overall average globally in 2020 was 21.3%, so if your email open rate is 22% or higher, you can assume you’re doing something right. However, the average open rate can vary depending on industry, country, and whether you’re B2B or B2C.
Check the benchmark for your specific industry here:
https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/
Table of Contents
1. Choose a winning subject line
You have to be extra careful in your wording of the subject line, as it is a major factor determining whether your subscribers click on your emails.
As for word-choice, there are certain salesy phrases you should avoid, like “discount,” “upgrade,” or even the dollar signs (“$$$”). If your subject line sounds like it contains nonessential information, or is a thinly-veiled attempt at selling something, then not only will your recipients be likely to ignore it, but the higher the chance it’ll get buried in the spam folder.
Words to avoid in your subject line:
100% satisfied, 50% off, amazing, affordable, apply now, best price, buy, call now, click here, credit, exclusive, fantastic, get, get started now, last day, limited time offer, money back, one-time, only, order now, special promotion, this won’t last, today, while stocks last, win
To improve your subject lines, I highly recommend doing A/B tests and slightly changing one variable each time, to see what kind of subject yields the best results with your specific audience. You’ll want to take a small sample to start with, and split it into two groups - for example, a group of 15 and 15 leads, and then send them two different test emails.
Sample A: You’re not the only one struggling with big data.
Sample B: Big data is overwhelming. Can we help?
Above, we’re testing if question form subject lines generate a better response than statements. Then, we would take the winning subject and use it in a bulk email to the rest of our mailing list.
Other factors to test: long vs. short, creativity vs clarity, personalization vs. no personalization, emoji vs. no emoji
Examples of strong subject lines:
- {First name}, Check Out Our 2021 Product Updates
→ this works because it’s personalized and clear
- Key Takeaways from our Email Marketing Seminar
→ straightforward and honest; conveys the value that this email offers
- Complete Your Sales Process 75% Faster
→ provides concrete data and appeals to a pain point (inefficient sales)
- Welcome, {first name}! Why Customers Trust {company name}
→ when a user subscribes, sending a personalized welcome email has been shown to improve their open rate in the future
- Have you heard? / Quick question.
→ stimulates their desire to fill in the knowledge gap- have I heard what?
2. Use a trustworthy sender name
A survey of american consumers found that 42% of people consider the sender name when deciding whether to open an email - it’s even more important than the subject line. Your recipients will normally glance at the sender name to see if it is a legit email - if the sender name is clear and appears to be a real person. Thus, this should be set as the company name or an employee’s name, not just an email address.
Note! BtoC sender names can be the brand name, like Dr. Marten, Nike, or H&M. BtoB sender names, on the other hand, should be personalized and include an employee's name, since relationship-building is a crucial factor in btob sales (ex. Jim at/from/@ Google).
The email address itself should also come from a reliable domain, like your official company email. Don’t use gmail or yahoo addresses to send mass marketing emails or they will likely end up in spam. I also advise against using an impersonal email like info@company.com.
3. Segment your mailing list
Naturally, in order to get your subscribers to engage with your emails, you have to deliver content that is relevant to them. This means segmenting your mailing list in order to send the optimal contents to specific audiences.
Here are a few strategies for customer segmentation:
- Demographics. Qualify leads by their age, gender, industry, and company position. This information can easily be acquired with online forms, such as “contact us forms” and “whitepaper download forms.”
- Active vs. inactive users. Try sending a re-engagement email to subscribers who haven’t opened your emails in the past few months, and spark their interest in your service again.
- Region. If you have leads spread out across the globe, you might want to stagger your emails by time zone for the best results.
- Stage in the sales cycle. Send info-packed resources to cold leads that need a bit more nurturing and direct the more sales-oriented emails and industry-specific case studies to warm leads.
4. Get the timing right
Research suggests that for B2B companies, it’s best to send marketing emails around 10AM when your target audience has just arrived at work, or 1PM when they’re checking emails after lunch. Also, Tuesday appears to be the day with the highest open rate. Naturally, you’ll want to avoid sending emails on Saturday and Sunday, when it could get lost under the numerous emails that enter their inbox over the weekend.
Alternatively, for B2C companies, the open rate does not differ that significantly by time, though studies suggest that Saturday around midnight works best.
5. Cleanse your email list
20-30% of your email list becomes inactive every year, from emails going out of use to subscribers no longer interested in your emails. Thus, you should regularly remove unengaged subscribers from your list.
When emails never reach the recipient, this could be a hard bounce (a permanent error such as the email being nonexistent or delivery being blocked by the email server) or a soft bounce (the email cannot enter the inbox due to temporary reasons, such as a full inbox or the server being down). Anyway, it’s important to clean out the hard bounce group, people who have unsubscribed or false email addresses. You can easily identify the erroneous email addresses in most email mailing tools, as well as from our Marketing Automation tool BowNow.
6. Optimize emails for mobile readers
These days, people check emails on their smartphones more than any other device, making it necessary to format your email campaigns to be legible and visually pleasing on smaller phone screens as well.
Keep in mind the length of your subject line: while a computer may display 60 characters or so, your phone email app will only show about 25-30, meaning you run the risk of getting your subject cut off and the meaning not getting across. I recommend sending a test email to yourself and viewing it on your mobile device.
Second, on your phone inbox, you should be able to see preheader text - under the subject line, the first few words of the email content is visible, giving the reader a little preview of the text. This is another place you can play around with, by writing an enticing first line.
Lastly, keep your content concise. Don’t write large blocks of text - instead, divide your email into short, easily comprehensible sections, so the reader can get the gist of your message in a couple seconds. Express your content in bullet points and images whenever possible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wrap Up
Email marketing offers huge returns if you can find an effective strategy for your business. With these six proven, easy-to-implement tips, you should be able to raise your email open rate right away, and start generating more hot leads with email.
To learn more, check out our in-depth guide to email marketing:
https://bow-now.com/resources/emailmarketing/
Other articles that may be of interest:
★Email Marketing Strategies in 2021★
★What are on-site and off-site SEO?★
