Email marketing is a great way to promote offers to people who have already shown an interest in your website. One of the main challenges comes with trying to increase the number of people who actually open and read the emails you send. Average open rates usually sit at around 20% but vary massively depending on each list of contacts. You can use this figure as a rough guide when improving your own open rates. Here are four ways you can do that.
Use First Names in the Subject Line
It’s been proven that using the first name of the recipient in a subject line increases open rates. Addressing someone by their own name gives a personal touch and draws attention straight to your mail. Of course, to do this, you need to start capturing a prospect’s name along with their email address. So make sure the capture form on your website is set-up to do just this.
Don’t Send Too Often
If you send too many emails to your list of contacts, one of two things will happen. People will either start to unsubscribe from your mailing list, or more of your emails will be ignored.
There is certainly no figure that defines ‘too many’, but you will know based on the nature of your website what is most appropriate. When someone signs up to receive your mail, it should be clear what they will receive and you should give an indication of how often they will receive those messages. E.g ‘Sign up to receive our weekly/monthly newsletter.
Timing is Everything
The time you send an email will also impact open rates. If you are sending mail to different countries, it’s better, where possible, to segment these lists and send at convenient times for each one. You can split test sending at different times, to see which ones receives the best results. You will notice that certain days of the week and certain times of the day will be better than others.
Try to Avoid Spam Filters
Including certain words in the subject line can alert the spam filters and your email is unlikely to make it to the inbox! This is going to reduce open rates dramatically! It stands to reason that some words will automatically be rejected. Typically anything related to adult content, but often also the following:
– Currency symbols
– Words related to money
– Mentioning weight loss or enhancement supplements
– Using exclamation marks and capital letters
The key to all this is split testing. You should always split test subject lines to see what works best for you. This means sending 50% of your contacts an email with a different subject and comparing the results.
