Practical Advice For Boosting Your Email Open Rates
“How can I improve my open rate?” is a question on all of our minds because we put valuable time and resources toward creating and sending email campaigns. And while many variables play into the open rate of an email (time of day, time of year, even the weather), here are some practical tips for boosting opens that you can apply to your own email strategy today.
Brand your from name, from email address and your subject line
These are the first things that folks see when they receive your emails. Your from name and email address should be instantly recognizable and branded. Unless you’re Mark Zuckerburg, it might make sense for you to send emails from a more brand-specific email address like, info@yourcompany.com with your company’s name listed as the from name.
Next, let’s talk subject lines: They should be concise and feature your most important or most interesting information. Remember to add your company’s voice and personality and, by all means, steer clear of the ever-so-boring “July Newsletter.” For ideas be sure to check out these 5 Quick Tips for Effective Email Subject Lines.
Segment your audience and send relevant info to the right people
How well you segment your audience and send targeted messages will determine the fate of your open rate. While the old “batch and blast” approach may work for some companies, segmenting is key to getting the most out of your email marketing. Here are two ways to try segmenting:
By demographic area
- Location. If you’re collecting postal codes during signup, you can find members who are closest to your brick and mortar location. Send these folks a campaign that highlights an in-store event or promotion.
- Age. If you’re collecting the birthdays for your new audience members, you can easily segment them by age and target a specific age range with your new product.
- Gender. If you have separate product lines for men and women, let new subscribers choose their gender on your signup form. Send targeted messages by dividing those guys and gals into separate groups.
- Customer status. The types of messages you send prospects should be different from those you send to established customers. Track where audience members are in the customer lifecycle so you can send prospects more promotional messages and send existing customers a feedback survey or event invitation.
By response information
Divide your subscribers along activity lines. Audience activity is a good representation of how engaged your subscribers are, and you can treat your most engaged subscribers a bit differently.
Keep in mind that each year up to one-third of email addresses become inactive or turn over due to job changes and deleted email accounts. Emfluence Emsights has some handy tips for reconnecting with subscribers who hard bounce, but try not to take it too personally if audience members don’t re-engage. You’re better off reserving your marketing efforts for those who already care about who you are and what you’re doing.