Introduction
Email marketing is a huge part of any company and it can be very difficult to receive good email open rates. Here are a few easy tips that will increase your email open rates. I learned these from my Mtech Digital Marketing class so they are proven tips that will be sure and help. There are many other ways to increase your open rates, these are just a few.
1. Make sure your list is up to date
The very first step to increasing your email open is to make sure your email list is up to date and fresh. What I mean by this is making sure that the people you are sending emails to are people who want to hear from you. Over time your email list will go stale no matter if you are keeping consistent with your emails or not. There will always be people who change their email or simply just aren’t interested in hearing from you anymore. The ways you can do this is through watching for the people who haven’t interacted with your email for over 6 months. This usually means that they are tired of hearing from you and just don’t know how to unsubscribe. When this happens you can do two things. The first is sending an email that makes them decide whether or not they want to hear from you. This email usually has a subject line that says something like “Are you still there?” or “Do you still want to hear from us?” Inside these emails you can put two calls to actions. One of them will say something like “I need to take a break” which will direct their email into a different email list that may only email them every 2 months or so. The other button will say something like “Yes! I’m still interested” This will continue them on the email list that they are on and will just reengage them with your emails. Note that we never have them unsubscribe from the email list because we don’t want to get rid of that lead, we just need to nurture it back into a good lead.
2. Segment your email list
Once you know that the people you are emailing want to hear from you, segment them into different groups. There are lots of ways to segment them but I recommend segmenting them with the marketing funnel. This funnel includes attention, interest, desire, and action. Have different emails for each of these groups. An example would be if you want to create an email for someone who is in the action phase, you would want your email to have a product and a buy now button so that they can take action. They don’t need any more information, they just need a way to buy it. On the other side of the funnel, someone who may be in the attention phase, may just need an email with information about your product and how it can help them or even just an email about your company and what you do. The more you segment your email list the better open rates you should have because people are seeing what they want to be seeing.
3. Timing your emails
People get hundreds of emails a day so knowing exactly when to send your emails and catch their attention is super important. The best time to send an email to your customers is different for every company. How you can know when to send these is knowing your buyer personas and when your target market is checking their email. Another way to test when the optimal time to send an email is through A-B testing. This is sending the exact same email to different groups at different times. Once you have found the best time to send the emails, send every email at this time so that you can get the best results. Keep in mind that your different segments may have different times that work best.
4. Create an eye-catching subject line
The subject line of your email is everything. It has the biggest effect on if your leads open your emails or not. Think back to the emails that you have opened today. I bet that the biggest reason you opened that email was because of the subject line. An example of a good subject line would be “Before you do this make sure and read this” or “13 easy tips to do this” These two examples create curiosity in the user and make them want to read the easy tips that will bring them value with whatever task they may want to complete. You want to make sure that your subject line stands out so using exclamation marks or question marks is a good tactic. With that said, you don’t want to overdo it or else it will look like spam and gmail will automatically place it in the spam folder. Another good strategy to make your subject line stand out is to use humor. With anything in marketing, humor is always a good way to increase the engagement.
5. Give them something of value
The last tip that I’ll talk about is to give your customers something of value. When you give something of value it creates a bond with your customers and starts to train them that your emails are useful and will actually help them. One of the best examples that I can think of for this is the smoker company Traeger. All of their emails that they send include a recipe for your next BBQ along with links to all the seasonings or products needed for the recipe. This is perfect bringing a brand new recipe to try while also giving them call to actions to buy different products from you. My mtech instructor said that these are his favorite emails to receive which is what you strive for as a company. You want your customers to be excited every time they see your emails.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the best way to increase your open rates is to bring value to your customers while standing out. Don’t overthink your emails and try to constantly get someone to buy from you. You need to nurture your leads and be patient, don’t scare them away. Try these few tips and see if you get an increase in open rates.