Three simple points to increase youe email open rates

Last Updated: March 1, 2013By Chintan Bharwada

Do you monitor your email open rates? You might think that this is a silly question, but tons of small businesses forget to monitor or to check this. If your email marketing open rates have slumped in the last six months, it means you need to look into this. Seriously, if you want to get the message across you need to make the emails relevant and exciting.

I know your next question, what is a good open rate? Well, like any other consultant I would like to say, “It depends”. However, this is not entirely true. Generally, I believe you should have a open rate of more than 18-20%. This is based on the assumption that your prospects/customers have willingly subscribed to receive your email updates. You are also required to see the trend in your open rates over the last 6-8 months.

It is true that email open rates have been down than what it was few years back. You can blame, in part, on email overload, but there are ways to lift the chances for opening your email. Here are a few things to consider:

Stand out with a good subject line: Keep your subject line small, persuasive and appealing. Do not make the mistake to narrate the whole story of your email subject line. Remember, the aim is to make it attractive enough that the receiver will want to read more. Never over-promise or mislead in your subject line, but you are allowed to be a little imaginative.

Select your target audience correctly: It is not always possible, but try to target your emails to people how would be interested in the topic. At times, you can send a mass email to everyone on your list. However, most of the time, it pays to segment your email list by the topic. For example if you are an accounting firm/consultant, if there is a new change in sales tax, you may want to target accountants and business owners, whereas an email on a new capital gains tax requirement may go to CFOs and financial controllers. This will be a time consuming exercise, but once done you will reap the rewards for it.

Time it carefully: Remember that main aim is to engage. If you content is right and if you are selective as to whom you send it to, the only other thing you need to do is to time you email carefully. I know that we all get tons of email every day. If you start sending frequent emails to your lists, it may backfire. You just cannot send too many emails. Best is to generate an email campaign broadcast schedule. Make sure you live by it. If it is a non-work related email message then best to send it after 3 pm on Wednesday or Thursday. If you email message contains important and sensitive information, send it out off schedule. However, be mindful of sending this email only to selected people who might directly affect/benefited by the material covered in the email.

Follow these few simple points and see your email open rates go up at least 10% to 15%.

Chintan Bharwada

Chintan is the Founder and Editor of Loyalty & Customers.

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