So you’ve been increasing the size of your email list and really taking the time to put out entertaining and educational content; you also send marketing-related emails promoting your products and services.
But is anyone really hearing your message?
One thing you can be sure about – if they don’t open your emails, they cannot read your message.
This is why it is so important to put in the extra effort to entice people to actually open your emails.
You know how it works - As people skim through their inboxes, they often delete emails before even looking at what the email says. We’ve all done this, especially when our inboxes fill up fast.
The question is – how can you make your email stand out so that they are not deleted but opened and read.
In this article, I will share you with some tips on how to make that happen.
Start with a great subject line
The email subject line plays a vital role in the 1-second decision of whether to open or delete the email.
Instead of generic subjects like “Friday Newsletter” or “News Updates”, consider instead something that doesn’t disappear among all the other emails in someone’s inbox.
For example:
- Ask a question: Do you want…?, Are you tired of…?
- Solve a problem: Reasons why you need …, Ways you can increase…
Spend a few minutes to improve the subject line and make it easy for people to want to read your email.
Need more ideas on how to craft good subject lines? Read my blog post about the topic here >>
Use the second subject line (aka preview text)
Now that you have an excellent subject line, avoid having your email deleted before it’s ever opened by selectively choosing the preview text. This is what the recipient sees directly under the subject line.
You’ve got another 6 - 10 words to tell your subscriber why they should open your mail.
Check to see if your email marketing system allows you to specify the preview text, then make it your own.
Choose the most interesting part of your email or craft an engaging summary. Make people laugh or spike their interest. Any of these are better than “Dear reader”.
This one tip alone can increase your email open rate by 50% and even give you a 59% higher click to open rateTake advantage of the “From” field
The ‘From’ field can be tailored to display the most attractive format. The various formats include:
- Just the email address - E.g. michelle@biggerimpact.tech
- Sender’s name – E.g. Michelle Castillo
- Company name - E.g. Spot On Digital Marketing
- A combination - E.g Michelle from Spot On Digital Marketing
How do you decide which format is best? Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- What is best for my audience?
- Is my audience familiar with my name or my company name or both?
- What will build awareness for my brand?
Make your “From” field the most attractive to your audience, so they will want to open your email.
Improve the chances that your email makes it to their mailbox
There are many reasons that an email does not arrive at its intended destination. The details will be covered in a future blog, but it’s useful to be aware of.
If your email is not in someone’s inbox, of course, they cannot read it.
And, if people don’t open your email, they definitely will not read it.
Measure the results
Email open rate is the percentage of people who open a specific email out of the total number of people who received it. The more people open your emails, the higher the open rate is.
If you use an email marketing software or a CRM system such as Keap, you can see the open rate of each email you send out.
Keep track of your progress and take note of what changes improved the rate. Play around with it and see how much more you can increase that percentage.
Once you’ve reviewed your email open rate, you will want to improve it. The best way to do that is to give people a reason to want to open it, instead of sending it to the trash.
