Here are six helpful tips for increasing your response results for you folks who love the thrill of watching those results roll in.
Get permissions.
The best thing you can do to boost your response rates is to follow the first rule of permission email marketing: send only to people who’ve asked to receive your emails. Keep in mind that folks who have quality, permission-based lists and who know their audience typically garner the best responses. Along these lines, you’ll want encourage your readers to add your From Address to their address books, to help ensure safe delivery week after week and to keep your messages consistently in your readers’ inboxes.
Keep your list clean.
Maintain a clean list by handling bounces properly and scrubbing your list regularly. Be sure to check those emails that bounced – the email could be incorrect because of a typo or it may no longer be a valid address. Scrubbing your list includes removing duplicates or generic accounts (e.g., info@ or sales@) and removing inactive addresses with no opens or clicks in the last 12 months (or the period of time appropriate for your sending).
For more suggestions on reaching out to your audience read a few things to watch for when emailing an old list.
Proof your content.
If your open rates are lower than you expected, there’s a chance that a phrase or two in your email kept it from arriving safely in your recipients’ inboxes. In addition to certain phrases and formatting, spam filters may block or quarantine emails that contain large images. Plus, the longer load times may make your emails less likely to catch a reader’s eye. Aim for images no larger than 480 x 480 pixels, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.
Keep Your email size reasonable.
As you’re putting your newsletter together, remember that straightforward, easy-to-read content encourages your recipients to open your email – and keep on reading. And in addition to being reader-friendly, shorter campaigns are server-friendly, too. Lengthy blocks of text and lots of images can make it harder for receiving servers to accept your content, so consider linking to landing pages to serve up more content outside of the email.
Send when people are more likely to respond.
It’s important for your email to arrive when the majority of people are most likely to read it. The ideal send time for your organization depends largely on who you’re sending to, so keep your audience in mind when scheduling or sending a campaign. And while there’s not one best time sending time, you may want to avoid scheduling a campaign for the close of business day or first thing Monday morning. Read more about send times.
Entice with your subject line.
Along with the From Address, your subject line plays a major role in encouraging people to open your email. If you want to see whether a spicier subject line makes a difference in your open rate, try dividing your audience into two groups, sending the campaign with two separate subject lines, and comparing the results after the big send-off.
Click here for 5 quick tips for effective subject lines.