Appeal To Audiences and Improve Your Email Open Rate

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Your email open rate can make or break your marketing campaigns — in fact, your business’ success depends on it!

There are more than 3.9 billion email users daily (more than half the global population), so email marketing is definitely a tool you need in your kit.

But what good is investing in email marketing if no one opens your content?

Keep reading to find out how to measure and improve your email marketing success!

1. How do you measure your email open rate?

You can calculate your email open rate by taking the number of emails that were opened, dividing that value by how many emails were sent, and then converting your answer to a percentage.

For example:

45 emails read / 100 delivered emails = 45% email open rate.

Source: systeme.io analytics dashboard

Depending on what platform you use for digital marketing, your service provider should give you a table of analytics that presents the above values for every email you send.

This makes your life a whole lot easier because you can pinpoint what works best to optimize your content — no more wasting time!

Are you not on a platform that does this? Check out systeme.io.

Email open rates differ across industries, but the standard email open rate is 16,97% on average.

Obviously, you aim to beat the average bar and have as many emails opened as possible.

This data can form one of your Key Performance Indexes (KPIs) but needs to be read in context.

1.1. Other data you should pay attention to

Email open rates alone don’t determine whether your email marketing campaign is successful — this KPI is supported by other data.

To determine whether any of your content was actually read, a click-through rate (CTR) is often observed.

CTR refers to the number of people who received your email and clicked on the link or the call to action (CTA) within it.

If you need more in-depth insights, some marketing software (like HubSpot) can give you the percentage of people who read, skimmed, or immediately closed your email.

The conversion rate (how many leads become customers) is another KPI to watch out for, as this will help you determine if your email campaign is closing sales.

Most email marketing services offer an analytics dashboard that can break down this data to help you see if your emails are doing their job.

Source: systeme.io individual email analytics

If you’re still new to email marketing, there are proven ways to build your email list for free available to you.

Once you’ve measured your current success, start implementing these methods to get emails opening and fingers clicking.

2. Key areas for open rate optimization

In this next section, we’re going to point out 8 key areas of email marketing that can increase your email open rate.

The return on investment (ROI) for email marketing is $42 for every $1 spent — a potential profit that’s too high to pass up.

The tactics below are here to point you in the right direction to make that profit — implement them on your very next communication and your email campaigns will improve overnight!

2.1. Personalization

Think about your own inbox — it’s probably full of personal and marketing emails, and we all know which ones you’re going to pay attention to first.

Generally, people take the time to read emails that directly address them or their current pain points and skim or delete those that are just money-hungry sales pitches.

To avoid the dreaded spam folder, you can add a personal touch to your emails through tone, content, and format.

Here are some ways you can personalize your leads’ experience via email:

Know your buyer persona and write to just that “person”
Write like an old friend
Include the receiver’s name in the greeting
Add value more often than making offers using lead magnets
Curate the content you send to each lead using segmentation
Add your own picture to the email and use your name

Using these tactics creates a comforting and familiar tone throughout your communication — your emails will be a more pleasant read.

Knowing your buyer persona(s) and segmenting your email lists and campaigns means that your contacts will only ever receive content that they’re actually interested in — they’ll be more likely to read it.

Your leads will feel that you truly care about them as an individual with the personal effort that you’re putting in, even if you’re making use of automation.

Including names and pictures gives your leads the idea that they’re connecting with an actual person — not software using them to make a quick buck.

2.2. Snappy subject lines

Your subject line is the first thing your leads see when you pop up in their inbox — you only have a few seconds to grab their attention and pique their curiosity.

You’ll stand out from the bland and maddening marketing crowd with a more creative subject line.

Creativity flourishes best within a framework, so here are some tricks of the subject line trade:

Keep it short — 7-word subject lines perform best
Use odd numbers — their oddness is attractive
Put your keywords first — make sure your most important information isn’t cut off
Use emojis — these create a light, vibrant atmosphere
Reuse your top FAQs — answer their questions
Reuse your top captions/posts — link to the relevant social media or blog post

These tricks are easy to implement and can get you real results almost instantly — why not test them out on your next newsletter?

2.3. Mobile responsiveness

There are 6.3 billion smartphone users worldwide — that’s 90% of the world with an email-enabled phone in their hands.

On average, 41.9% of email opens take place on mobile phones first, so you can’t afford to send an email that only performs well on a desktop.

There are several ways that you can ensure that your emails look as good and work as well on cell phones:

Simplify your format and only use single columns
Use font size 15 or bigger
Make sure your email works with or without images
Use smaller images
Space links far apart
Use larger buttons

These strategies ensure that your email is legible on a smaller screen and doesn’t take too long to load.

Spacing and sizing mean that your leads will click the link they want to — no frustrated smashing of thumbs on a screen.

Finally, you should remember that Android devices have an automatic setting that prevents images from being downloaded in an email (to save data), so you can’t rely on your pictures to prove your value.

2.4. Focus on format

The format of your entire email is important — snappy subject lines won’t save cluttered content from the spam folder.

The pre-header text is another element of your email’s preview that you can use to your advantage.

You can do this by adding meaningful statements or indicating benefits to your contacts, right off the bat — send a test email to yourself and see whether your pre-header text makes you want to open the message.

When composing your email, decide whether to use plain text or a more visual format — which suits your niche best?

Here are some mistakes to avoid when crafting your email:

Dense and uninterrupted blocks of text — looks boring
Too many flashy graphics — overwhelming to the eye
Looking like an advert — this focuses on sales and not on leads
Too many links to click or offers to choose from — too many choices lead to no choice at all
Be careful with spam trigger words — you may be filtered based on word use depending on your business’ reputation

The best way to hook your leads is to add value first, so include links to your lead magnets and get people excited about your content.

By centering the format of your email on nurturing your relationship with your contacts, you’ll make your email’s open rate soar — we’re people first and consumers second.

2.5. Clicks and CTAs

When crafting your CTA, consider the following examples and which you (and your leads) are more likely to interact with:

A CTA that includes a strong verb and personal pronoun will win over your audience — they feel included and believe that a simple click will solve all of their problems.

These clicks affect your email CTR, another important KPI that contributes to how you view email marketing and the ROI of your entire business.

Here are some handy ways to make your CTA infinitely clickable:

Be specific — generalizations are easy to ignore
Use personal pronouns — speak directly to your contact
Use strong verbs — the command form of the verb makes your CTA more actionable
Use a CTA bigger than your thumb — this makes your CTA more mobile-friendly
Image vs. hyperlink — remember, images may not appear on certain devices
Create a bulletproof button — if you’re a coding whiz, you can use a bit of code to create a visual button that will always appear

Once you have crafted the perfect email and you’ve won over those clicks, there are just a few more places where you can work to improve your email open rate.

2.6. Spring clean your list

Like a kitchen closet, your email lists can become cluttered — cleaning up gives you peace of mind and makes space for people that want to be there.

Try the following techniques to improve the quality of your email list:

Use 2 step authentication — send a verification email after sign-up to ensure that the email address used is active
Become a trusted contact — guide your leads and get added to contact lists so that your emails don’t bounce
Monitor bounce rates — study hard and soft bounces and reach out to have users update their details
Try to get them back — use an email campaign or send out a survey to find out why contacts are inactive
Remove inactive subscribers — they can cost you money depending on your software provider
Immediately contact new subscribers — don’t leave them hanging and subscribe them to an email campaign ASAP

Cleaning up your list is easier with a dedicated and easy-to-use email marketing platform — make sure you’re using the right one.

2.7. Timing is everything

The perfect timing for your contacts to receive your emails differs based on your industry.

To get to that sweet spot, you’ll need to run multiple A/B tests and study the data to find out which times work best for which emails.

You can use the following generalized data to get you started:

The best days to send out emails are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays
The worst days to send an email are Saturdays and Sundays
The best time to send is 9-10 am (start of the workday) and 2-3 pm (after lunch)

These details are a great guide for general timing across the world, but you need to consider the following factors before you implement them:

Time zones — segment your lists based on your contact’s location
Audience — your contacts might consist of people who are early risers, so target them accordingly
How often do you send emails? — if you email twice a week, avoid consecutive days

Once you have your timing down, there’s only one more area that can help or hinder your email open rates.

2.8. ESPs are everything else

If you’ve been tackling email marketing on a larger scale, you probably have an email service provider (ESP) who is hosting your list and seeing to your email marketing needs.

Selecting the one that’s right for you, and your pocket can be difficult.

Here are some features to look for when making that choice:

Provide verified domains— prevents misuse and loss of service
Email templates with built-in unsubscribe buttons — to ensure you comply with email marketing regulations
Use good IP addresses — won’t trigger spam filters
Include email campaign automation— makes your life easier and prevents human error

There are tons of email marketing platforms to choose from, but adding on another expensive service provider isn’t your only option.

Head over to systeme.io — here’s a full list of our features, ready to support your every business need.

3. Conclusion

Don’t forget, all your emails have to be General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant — you should make them CAN-SPAM compliant too.

If you’re lucky, your ESP will provide you with guidance on how to achieve the above compliance.

Email open rates don’t have to make you miserable — if you follow this guide they’ll skyrocket!

New to email marketing? Let us help you build your list today.

Ready to get started with an all-in-one platform that can help you increase your open rates and support all your business needs?

Join systeme.io now.