7 Ways to Increase Your Email Open Rate

Have you been looking for a step-by-step guide on how to improve your email open rate, increase your conversion, and multiply your sales?

Are you struggling with overcoming low open rates and do you want to know what to do to make people click on your email and take your desired action?

You already know that a higher email open rate tends to bolster the conversion rate too. Email open rate statistics have shown that the average standard open rate for all industries is 21.33%. This is what a good email open rate looks out.

What it means is that for every 100 subscribers in your email list, you aren’t doing anything wrong if 22 people click to open your email. Your open rates are one of the things that indicate if your email marketing strategy works or not.

What is Email Open Rate?

Email open rate is the percentage of the total number of subscribers who opened an email campaign.

In this blog post, we shall be teaching you how to cause the fingers of your email list subscribers to itch towards opening any mail you send.

Here are the seven things you must do to increase your email open rate.

1. Infuse Creativity Into Your Subject Line

Your email open rate would have gone ahead of what it is today if you were tracking it over a period of time.

The subject line otherwise called the title or the topic of the mail is the first thing that your email list contacts will see.

An enticing subject line goes the extra mile to trigger more email open rates. Therefore, you have to be creative with how you write your subject line.

It was a legendary advertiser, David Ogilvy who said that 80% of your job is done if you get your headline accurately – this applies to email marketing too.

Related: How to Craft an “Attention Grabbing” Headline So You Can Convert Your Potential Customers Online

Of course, you may not be sure of what works best when it comes to infusing creativity into your subject line. Therefore, here are some of the ways to make your subject line stand out:

· Insert Numbers

The power of numbers cannot be ruled out of the equation of increasing email open rates. Because the attention span of humans is now hovering around 6 seconds, you must assure your email list contacts that you wouldn’t be wasting their time.

A rule of thumb is to insert numbers at the beginning of the subject line. That will help potential readers to know how many points they should expect to read up. It is then up to them to consider if the numbers are realistic.

We suggest using the numbers 1-6. For example, you want your email subject line to be “5 Ways to Increase Your Email Open Rate” instead of the generic “How to Increase Your Email Open Rate.” They see it as something they can easily scan through, so they can easily click on the headline. It’s now left for you to get them hooked beginning with your email introduction.

· Make Them Curious

You can also use curiosity or suspense to increase your email open rate. You want to use a subject line as “The Goldmine That Nobody Has Discovered.”

When people are curious to know about something, they will click to check it out. And if you’ve been able to master how to craft a top-notch email copy, then your chances of closing then is huge.

In case you want to save time and cost, we recommend you use this automatic email copy generator called Email CopyDyno that will help you write a highly converting email copy in less than five minutes.

If you would like to learn how to craft an attention-grabbing, eye-popping email, sales copy, or blog post headline every single time using a plug and template, then I recommend you place an order for Emenike Emmanuel’s digital book for just $5 on Gumroad. Hundreds of people have used THE MAGIC HEADLINE HOOKS to increase their email open rate because of its effectiveness.

2. Consider the Timing

Most times, people don’t read emails sent during working hours. They will be very busy with the day’s work to have some time to open your mail. Instead, consider using the right timing to increase your email open rate.

Here are some tips on how to use the right timing to get your emails opened:

• Send out most of the emails during non-working hours, such as early in the morning and later in the evening.
• If you must send the emails during the day, ensure it is at the same time that the readers tend to be having a break from their work.
• Consider sending the mails during the weekend, such as Saturdays and Sundays.

Most importantly, pay attention to your email analytics in your autoresponder dashboard to know what works for you.

3. Consider the Mobile Users

About 74% of email list contacts use their mobile devices to open emails. Because you are using the desktop or PC interface to write and format the mails, the same may not show up accordingly on the mobile devices.

Therefore, consider mobile device users by formatting the mails to fit into the mobile interfaces too. Small business owners who were not properly guided on how mobile marketing works never stops underrating its power.

Here are some tips on how to format your emails to stay fit for mobile users so as to increase your open rates:

• Use smaller images. This helps to increase the email load time.
• Format using the single-column and under 600px wide option
• Don’t place multiple links within the same paragraph
• Use larger fonts for the email contact
• Ensure that the Call-to-Action button is larger because that makes it easier to spot when using a mobile device

Related: How To Write A Great Call-To-Action

4. Personalize the Name

There are name tags that your email service provider offers you to personalize the emails you send. That is one of the effective ways of increasing email click-through rates.

If you were to be the recipient of a mail that has your name at the beginning, wouldn’t you like to open it? That is the same feeling and the prompted action that a personalized mail has on your email list contacts.

Beyond personalizing the emails, you send out to your subscribers with their name, you can also personalize it around your prospect’s interest and buyer’s persona. Anything to make it look like you are speaking them directly.

The use “You” is more appropriate than using “They, People or Them.”

For instance, instead of saying, “Here Are 3 Reasons People Are Failing At Email Marketing” you can say, “Here Are 3 Reasons Why You Are Failing At Email Marketing” or better put, “Donald, Here Are 3 Reasons Why You Are Failing At Email Marketing.”

5. Do Not Be Too Promotional

Quite all right, you are trying to make sales via emails. But, do not be overly promotional. Do not be like the traditional digital marketer that continually sells without putting the needs of the target audience into consideration.

The rule of thumb is not to be too promotional with your mails. Instead, you want to write amazing content that will keep your email list contacts engaged all the time.

Build a relationship and trust with them so that when you want to sell directly, it wouldn’t be too difficult to convert them.

Email is still one of the top channels for marketing business but being too promotional is a big marketing mistake.

Related: 3 Marketing Mistakes Most Startup Entrepreneurs Make (And How to Avoid Them)

6. Segment Your Email List

No digital marketer has successfully made 99% sales. Most times, they end up generating 50% sales or less.

This is because some of the email list contacts will buy while some others wouldn’t. In light of that, you have to segment or categorize your email list. You want to place the buyers in one segment and the non-buyers in another.

This helps you to create different content that resonates with the likely actions that you expect each of the email segments to take.

By using segmented email lists, your mails will be deciphered correctly. For example, sending a new offer to your segmented buyers will be more rewarding because they have already bought from you before.

For those that haven’t bought from you, keep sending out amazing content like this that will cause them to buy from you.

7. Run Away from Spam Filters

Nobody wants his or her mail to end up in the Spam Folder. But you may be heading that way if you are not careful.

There are chances that you are reducing your email open rate because your email is considered “spam.” It simply means that you use words that are considered to be too “salesy.”

At all costs, you must avoid the following words or phrases in the emails you send out:

• Deal
• Rich
• Free
• Sale
• Discount
• Cash
• Buy
• Clearance

Related: How to Grow Your Business Using Email Marketing Even If You Are Just Starting Out

Time to Improve Your Email Open Rate Subject Lines

It is a tough competition out there already in the email marketing world. You don’t want to be trampled upon by other marketers who already mastered how to get their email open rates to skyrocket.

Now that you have understood what affects email open rates, do well to implement the simple strategies above. However, if after implementing these things we discussed here and you are still struggling with having more open rates, you should consider learning how to improve your writing skills.