How do you assess the efficacy of your email marketing campaigns?
You will likely gauge your success based on how many recipients open your emails (also known as your email open rate) and how many of them click on your links (click-through rate).
I used to measure it in that way.
While there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s often forgotten that the open email rate—without which there’s no chance that anyone will click on your email—ultimately determines the click-through rate.
Therefore, you need people to open your email to get a better click-through rate.
So, how can you increase the number of emails opens?
There are many internet suggestions for boosting email open rates, but I’m only concerned with the actual statistics supporting email open rate success.
Your ability to create effective email marketing campaigns can significantly influence how people read emails.
For instance, the kind of device they used to read it.
Mobile and tablet devices are now too important for marketers to ignore.
Since 2011, the percentage of emails opened from mobile devices has increased by more than 100%, rising yearly.
The sender name and subject line are the most crucial elements in getting your emails opened and read.
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What Are Email Open Rates?
Email open rate is an email marketing metric that measures how many subscribers in your email list opened your email. According to a Mailchimp report, a reasonable open rate should be between 15% and 30% for most industries.
This means that 15 – 30 subscribers should open your email if you have a hundred email subscribers. So that would be a good open rate.
Here are a few tips and checkboxes to tick before starting your email campaigns. If you want to increase your email open rate, the first step is to create an appealing email sign-up form.
Why Do You Need To Increase Your Email Open Rate
1. Increase the potential of your email marketing campaign
Assume you have 1,000 subscribers, a 10% email open rate, and a 2% click rate (the average for all industries is 2.62%).
Only 100 people will open each email campaign you send out, and only two will click a link to visit your website.
If you can get your email open rate up to 20%, 200 people will open it, and 4 of them will click the link to your website. With the same list, that represents a 100% increase.
- Avoid spam filters
Email open rate is significant for a second reason that many overlook: it can affect how well your email campaigns perform in the future.
Email spam filters will eventually mark your future campaigns as spam. They won’t ever reach the recipients’ inboxes but their spam folder if you send out email campaigns with email open rates below the expected average.
Therefore, it’s critical to take the appropriate steps to increase open rates and safeguard the security of your domain and email list so your emails do not end up in the spam folder. Check out the guide for how to find someone email address.
How To Increase Your Email Open Rate
1. Start from your email signup form
You might wonder how the sign-up form helps increase your email open rate.
Actually, in order to succeed at email marketing, you must first increase the caliber and number of your email subscribers, which can only be done with a top-notch email signup form.
You must expand your email list if you want to succeed at email marketing. But, first, you need an excellent email signup form to expand your subscriber base.
Your design choice for that tiny box will affect how big your email list gets.
In the following few minutes, you’ll learn how to increase your blog’s email subscribers by improving your email subscriber form.
Qualities Of Good Email Signup Forms?
All of the top signup pages for email campaigns share some key characteristics.
1. Visibility
On the page, the signup form is visible. It is in plain sight. That most likely indicates its size, but it is also more. Here are some tips for increasing the visibility of your email signup box.
The color stands out against the colors in the area, particularly the subscribe button. See a few illustrations below.
Due to its “sticky” nature remains visible regardless of how far down the visitor scrolls. On this page, take note of the sticky footer.
It is dispersed throughout. On the blog’s home page’s top. On every post, near the bottom. In the footer, on the about page, etc.
Everything has an email signup window, also known as a lightbox or modal window. Naturally, 0% of visitors favor them. However, all marketers claim to be successful at growing their lists. It involves using judgment. After years of resistance, we’re now beginning to test them.
2. Assurance
Make a commitment to the guest. Inform them of the benefits of subscribing. Sadly, most registration forms fail to do this. The best forms for signing up for newsletters inform the user of two things:
Why would they subscribe if these details are kept a secret? “What’s in it for me?” should be addressed, and you should explain the advantages of being on the list. For both good and bad examples of this, keep reading.
3. Evidence
You must provide proof that your blog and newsletter are worthwhile reads if you want visitors to take action.
You can rely on one of two types of evidence:
4. Number of subscribers (quantitative)
This works best for established blogs because you need at least 1000 subscribers for it to be effective.
5. Testimony from a user (qualitative)
A personal quote from a supporter who adores you will have more impact. If it comes from a well-known person to your readers, it counts as an endorsement rather than just a testimonial.
6. Gifts
Offer the subscriber a gift or present. It’s frequently referred to as a “content upgrade” or “lead magnet.” Actually, it’s a moral bribe. You are exchanging their email address for more valuable content.
Some gifts are thought to be worth more than others! Here are the most practical gifts and those that are less effective.
- Good: include toolkits, reports, case studies, free downloads, evaluations, tests, and cheat sheets.
- Bad: contact us, lengthy whitepapers, webinars, free ebooks, and generic information.
7. Be human
Faces give it a more human and intimate feel. They also aid in increasing prominence by attracting visitors’ attention. When we are infants, we tend to look at faces more than other imagery.
You have the opportunity to direct the visitor’s gaze by using a face. You look where they look, so to speak. Visitors are more likely to look in the direction the face in the image is facing.
- Spam-free
If your target audience lacks confidence in you, you can include a note assuring them that you won’t sell or share their information.
Reminders about privacy, though, can backfire!
According to some studies, even using a pejorative term like “spam” can discourage signups because it may cause people to worry about something they weren’t previously worried about. For example, a test by Unbounce’s Michael Aagaard revealed that the phrase “100% spam free” decreased conversion rates by 18%.
He advises email marketers against using the word “spam” near forms for subscribing to newsletters. Find the populator email marketing mistakes to avoid.
2. Optimize your email subject lines
The email subject line is the first thing your subscribers will see when they open your email content in their inbox. If the subject line piques their interest, they might click to open the email and read the email content; otherwise, they’ll probably delete it without even opening it.
It is not surprising that almost one-third of email recipients open an email because they liked the subject line, according to statistics.
How can your subject lines be more intriguing?
- Make it brief—no more than 50 characters.
- Don’t make phony promises that aren’t backed up by the email’s content.
- Avoid using exclamation points or capital letters.
- Use words that describe “benefits” instead of words that make the recipient feel as though they must perform a difficult task (like reading a lengthy report).
To determine which subject lines your audience responds to best, experiment with different types and perform an A-B test.
You can accomplish this by segmenting your list, sending the same email (with a different subject line), and tracking the results using your email marketing tool.
Let’s examine the influence of a solid subject line.
Which email are you more likely to open if you receive two invitations to try out the same product?
Email 1: Try Our New Product!
or
Email 2: Expand Your Brand For Free With Our New Product!
The initial email reads like a spam invitation to test a hypothetical product. I would personally move the email right to the trash.
The second email increases interest and adds value because every company wants to strengthen its brand.
You’ve used the influential word “free.”
Even if I were busy, I would open the email and quickly glance at it. So always include a compelling subject line.
3. Avoid using spam filters
The subscribers never read more than 30% of sent emails. How come? The spam filter detects them as spam. What causes this to occur?
There are several, but the following are the most crucial ones:
Certain words
Refrain from using symbols, exclamation points, and words like “Buy” and “Rich” in the subject line. Mail servers may proactively move emails to the spam folder when they detect these in the subject line. In addition, you want to avoid breaking any incoming email policies businesses have.
Subscribers mark your emails as spam
When many recipients mark your email as spam, the spam filters receive a terrible signal that makes them become actual spam emails, which causes all of your emails to end up in the spam folder even before recipients see them. Unfortunately, Microsoft emails (Hotmail, Outlook), Gmail, and Yahoo are all susceptible to this.
Many links
Another factor that can compromise the integrity of your emails is the presence of too many links in the body of the email. Especially if they link to different domains, refrain from including too many links in the content.
Low open rates
As previously mentioned, if your email open rate is low, this will eventually have a negative effect on how many emails end up in the spam folders.
Learn about CAN-requirements
SPAM’s CAN-SPAM is a law pertaining to sending spam email messages.
You must ensure to include the following in all of your messages, even if it is not required by the email address.
Always include an unsubscribe link in emails that is active for at least 30 days after they are sent.
Include your company name and physical mailing address in the email.
4. Mobile compatibility
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Most people use their smartphones to read their emails. This indicates that you are in trouble if your emails are not set up for viewing on mobile devices.
49% of email messages are opened on mobile devices, and mobile phone owners frequently check their email on their phones.
The most popular tool for previewing and device-specific email optimization is Litmus, but it can be costly for bloggers and small businesses.
Inbox Preview, which Litmus powers, is a good substitute and is provided to MailChimp Pro free of charge.
Using a responsive email template (check with your email marketing tool) and performing quick tests by opening your emails on various mobile clients are two additional simple and cost-free ways to guarantee that your emails are mobile-friendly. Of course, you don’t have to test everything but start with the most widely used ones: Yahoo mail, Gmail, and the iPhone mail app.
5. Regularly clean up your email list
6. Segment your list
Remember that a smaller list with a low email engagement rate can avoid spam filters compared to a more extensive list with a higher engagement rate.
Checking your statistics and removing subscribers who haven’t opened an email from you in the last six months is the quickest way to “clean up your entire list.”
Of course, there are other ways to segment your email list and guarantee that your contact list is active, such as asking subscribers to confirm their subscriptions periodically, but this is a more complicated and time-consuming task than performing routine cleanups to segment your list and reduce the number of inactive subscribers.
I have people on my email list who are only interested in SEO-related topics, people who are interested in topics related to digital marketing techniques, and people who have varying levels of expertise.
When I send articles to beginners that are better suited to advanced users, they are useless to them, which lowers open rates.
Surveying your users is one way to segment your list. When someone joins your list, you can send them an email asking what kind of content they would like to see from you. Based on their response, you can add them to the appropriate list.
7. Re-send your emails
Re-sending your email campaigns to non-openers is another tactic that can help you immediately increase your email open rates.
Here’s how it works:
- Your email campaign has been sent.
- Create a new segment in two days and include all subscribers who received the campaign but did not open it.
- Re-send the campaign with a slight change in the subject line.
It can double your open rates and is a very straightforward technique that is also simple to apply (most email marketing tools have this ready for you).
You don’t have to do this for all your email campaigns; instead, just the crucial ones if you already send out many emails (say, three per week).
8. Make sure it’s easy to unsubscribe
In what way does this concern open rates?
People typically unsubscribe from your list when they no longer want to receive messages from you, and everything is fine.
They will most likely mark your email as spam, so they don’t receive it in their inbox if the unsubscribe button is absent or is too small to be seen in your email.
Your open rates will gradually drop if many people do this.
Play it safe and allow them to unsubscribe if someone requests to do so easily; this happens frequently.
In the end, you need active subscribers on your list who want to receive your emails rather than inactive ones.
9. Keep your subscribers happy and active
Remember that your subscribers joined your list voluntarily because they wanted to receive emails from you.
It’s terrible to bombard them with emails and spam their inbox, but it’s also harmful to not send them any at all.
As soon as someone joins your mailing list, you should seize the opportunity to interact with them.
Campaigns using email automation can significantly aid this, but you must ultimately maintain an active email list.
It won’t produce the same results if you stop sending them emails for a while and then suddenly decide to send email campaigns.
People who interact with your emails regularly are more likely to buy from you and join your vibrant community.
This is the primary goal of email marketing, and it is also why you are spending the time, money, and effort necessary to create an email list.
10. Use preview messages
The email preview text is displayed next to the email subject line in all popular email clients. This additional line of text must be considered a separate subject line.
Your email service provider will let you choose what appears in the preview. Make sure to add a hidden section to the top of your emails as instructed here if your provider does not allow this.
Give users more information in the message preview text to “encourage” them to open your emails.
11. Use email authentication
Email spam filters can be convinced that you are authorized to send emails from your domain through email authentication (using a third-party provider). Although some technical work is involved, successfully implementing email authentication will undoubtedly increase your email open rates.
Most well-known email marketing companies (such as MailChimp and Aweber) provide this service to their customers, and even though it has an additional fee, it is unquestionably something you should consider.
Email authentication basically ensures all emails are sent on behalf of a recognized domain and are not spam emails with an unknown sender.
12. Write in the first person
The first thing to check is that your name or brand is being used to send the emails.
You can set the “FROM NAME” before launching a campaign. You must use something that users can quickly recognize because this is displayed in the first column of the user’s inbox.
In my situation, I use “Henry, Sloovi SEO Blog,” which gives recipients of the email a good idea of who sent it. Also, using your real name instead of your brand name makes the email more personal.
The recipient’s name should be at the top of the email, which is the second thing to check. By doing this, you can get around spam filters and personalize your emails.
You should make entering the first name in the “first name” field mandatory for list subscribers. To begin with the recipient’s name, you can set up the emails within your email marketing platform. Adding a personalized subject line is an added advantage. Personalized subject lines are great for capturing the attention from a glance in the subscriber’s inbox for desktop and mobile users.
13. Use email signatures
Any effective marketing campaign relies on email signatures as a critical component. They are much more than just a place to put your name at the bottom of an email. They are a very effective B2B marketing channel.
They should also be a part of every campaign you run.
They can support brand identity, boost engagement, and produce fresh leads. However, the brief and unassuming email signature is frequently overlooked and does not require much time and money, unlike social media, email newsletters, and websites.
The importance of email signatures is becoming more and more apparent to people. Therefore, email signatures are appearing in B2B marketing campaigns more frequently.
You can easily set one up 100% free with our free Sloovi email signature generator.
Leverage
The Power of
Email Signature
14. Send your emails at the best time
There are people on your email list from all over the world. Something we overlook when we send out the magnificent email we toiled over for hours.
Email marketers must consider different time zones and the best days and hours for your audience since very few (if any) of them reside nearby.
Your email campaigns may be delivered at a specific time by some email marketing providers. For example, depending on their time zone, this might be 10 am.
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Some email service providers even analyze the data. For example, when subscribers are most likely to open and click through emails, that is when they are sent.
Even though the outcomes of numerous studies vary, you must ultimately determine what is adequate for your audience. But countless studies provide a place to start.
According to MailChimp, the best times are as follows:
According to all of the studies combined, weekends were the absolute worst time to send emails. Your best option for sending out that mouthwatering weekly newsletter is during the weekdays.
However, it’s crucial to remember that these studies were conducted using someone else’s email list, not your own.
Therefore, only use this information as a starting point and try out different days and times to send emails as an experiment.
15. Optimize your deliverability rate
One study found that more than 20% of emails never reach their subscribers’ inboxes.
Think about that for a minute. This means that 20 out of every 100 people are not receiving your emails due to delivery problems.
This step will have the most significant impact on raising your email open rates.
Here is an overview of the international delivery rates:
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What steps can be taken to improve deliverability?
- Request “whitelisting” or adding to their email contacts from your subscribers.
- Use two-way opt-ins (most email providers have this automatically)
- Re-engagement campaigns can be used to weed out subscribers who aren’t opening emails.
16. Employ humor
Humor has a way of instantly and strongly connecting with people. It’s distinctive, entertaining, and personal. You don’t need to be a comedian to write a funny email.
It would be best to focus on getting to know your email recipients well. It will be much simpler to pull off a joke or include a humorous reference if you know their likes and dislikes.
Thankfully, creating a funny email doesn’t require you to be a comedian. You must have a thorough understanding of your recipients. Knowing their preferences will make it much simpler to pull off a joke or make a humorous reference.
Conclusion
Freebie seekers will always exist, and they wouldn’t give a damn about your content or your company. The positive news is that you don’t want those individuals on your email list! They won’t read your emails, become devoted followers, gorge themselves on your content, or eventually make a purchase from you.
In that sense, it’s a blessing.
It need not be difficult to increase your email open rates.
You will notice significant changes if you include these minor adjustments in your email marketing campaign. Also, check out the detailed guide for email marketing metrics.