Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach customers and generate repeat business. You can use email marketing to drive sales and grow your email list, but it’s only effective if people open your emails.
You need to boost your email open rates if you want more people reading and responding to your emails. Fortunately, there are several things you can do on both an individual level and a business level that will help increase the likelihood that your emails get read by subscribers.
If you are looking for ways to increase your email open rate, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s get started.
What Is The Email Open Rate?
The open rate is a measure of how many people open your email. It is calculated by dividing the number of emails opened by the total number of people who received an email.
The email open rates can provide a good indication of how well your email marketing campaign is performing. Still, it’s essential to look at other statistics, as they may tell a different story. In general, however, a low open rate means something isn’t right with your strategy or tactics, and you should address it immediately.
What Is The Average Email Open Rate?
The average email open rate across all industries is 21.5%, but that number can be misleading as it doesn’t tell you much about your opt-in rates, which are probably higher (or lower) than that.
9 Ways To Boost Your Email Open Rates
Email open rates can make or break your marketing efforts. If you’re not getting enough opens, your emails may go straight to the trash and never be seen by your customers. Here are eight strategies to boost your email open rates:
1. Keep Your Email Short And Sweet
Most people don’t have time to read long emails. The sweet spot is around 300 words and three paragraphs maximum.
The reason is that longer emails take more time to read and digest, so there’s less chance of them getting read! If you need more, break it into two or more emails with clear call-to-actions (CTAs).
2. Use Bullet Points And Bold Text For Easier Readability
Bullets and bold text can help make your email easier to read, which is essential for keeping readers engaged.
It is especially true if you’re sending an email with a lot of information; if too many words are on the screen at once, it can be hard to focus on what’s important.
When you use bullets or bold text to highlight certain sections, you create visual cues that help readers understand where they should focus their attention.
3. Include A Clear Call-To-Action (CTA)
The more prominent you can make your CTA, the better.
If you’re looking to increase your open rates, make sure that your CTA is clear and direct—and that it’s easy for readers to understand what they have to do to take advantage of it.
If you have multiple CTAs in one email, consider using different colors to help readers differentiate between them.
For example: “Download our new app” or “Get 50% off now!”
4. Use A Personalized Subject Line
Personalize your subject line, so it matches the interests of your audience, which will help them decide whether it’s worth opening up the message or not!
It can be anything from asking if they want more information about something specific (like their favorite topic) to ask what kind of content they’d like next time!
Whatever works best for you should always go first because these things don’t always happen automatically like others (such as unsubscribing).
5. Use Relevant Preheader Text
Preheaders are the lines of text that appear before the main content in your email. They’re a great place to add extra info about the content of your email and encourage people to open it.
So how do you write an effective preheader?
- First, make sure it’s relevant to what’s going on in your email. It can be helpful to consider how readers might search for something related to your product or service and include those words in your preheader.
- Second, keep it short—no more than five words at most!
- Third, ensure there aren’t any spelling errors or typos in the text so that readers can trust everything else about your email!
6. Use A Relevant Image
A picture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to email marketing, a relevant image can make all the difference.
When you send an email, you ask someone to give up their time reading what you have to say. That’s a big deal! So please don’t make them work harder than they have to by sending them an email with an image that doesn’t relate to what you’re trying to accomplish.
If your goal is for people to click through on a link in your email, make sure your image is related—if it’s not, don’t use one. Remember how the image will look on various devices, such as smartphones and tablets, so they don’t appear distorted.
7. Clean And Segment Your List
If you’re sending emails to an extensive list, you can do a few things to ensure your messages are getting through to the right people.
First, clean your list by removing any duplicate names or inactive addresses. It also helps prevent your email from being marked as spam by Gmail and other email providers.
Second, you should also segment your list based on location, age, gender, and other demographics. If there are different types of customers in each department at your company, send them specific content that will appeal most strongly to their interests (and ensure those messages get sent out at the correct times).
It will help you target specific types of consumers, making them more likely to open up your emails later!
8. Make It Mobile-Friendly
People who use their phones to check email are much less likely to open your message if it’s not optimized for mobile viewing.
That means no vertical videos, lengthy text blocks, and links that take them away from your brand’s website—all things that happen when you don’t optimize for mobile!
To boost your email open rates, you should ensure that your emails are optimized for mobile devices. Not only does this increase the chance of your subscribers seeing your mail, but it also helps with their overall user experience.
9. Make Sure You Send At Right Frequency
If you’re sending too much, your subscribers will get annoyed and unsubscribe from your list. If you’re not sending enough, they might forget about you altogether!
So how often should you send it? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer here—it depends on your audience and what kind of content you’re sending out—but it’s a good idea to start with once per week (or every other week) and then adjusts based on how frequently people open/click/respond.
The best way to find out what’s suitable for your audience is to A/B test different email cadences and see how your open rates change. Once you’ve figured out what works best for your subscribers, stick with it!
Hiring An Email Marketing Agency Can Help You Increase Your Email Open Rates.
Email open rates are a great way to gauge the success of your email marketing campaign. They’re also a great indicator of engagement and credibility among recipients and a measure of how well you manage subscribers’ expectations.
The more people that open your emails, the more likely they will read them and engage with your brand or business.
An email marketing agency can help you increase your email open rates by providing insights into what’s working and what’s not and helping you remove any barriers preventing subscribers from opening up their inboxes.
Conclusion
You must use the information here to determine what is best for your business and email marketing campaign.
However, we do encourage you to try a few of these techniques. Start by using one or two methods on one email campaign. Then move on to the next email campaign and apply two or three approaches to that one.
Watch how these changes affect your email open rates and decide on the best approach for your business. After taking these steps, we are sure that you will be happy with the result of your email marketing campaigns.
