28 Jul 9 Best Ways to Get Subscribers to Open Your Emails

Email marketing begins with getting people to subscribe to your list. As soon as you have mastered this process and get a number of new subscribers per day, the next step is to get people to open and interact with your emails.

The 20% rule can be used as a guide. Your email open rate should be around that number. If it isn’t, then you need to conduct A/B testing to see what kind of emails work.

Email Open Rate – What Does It Mean?

Compared to the total number of subscribers on your mailing list, an email open rate measures the percentage of subscribers who open up a particular email. Let’s say you have 100 subscribers on your mailing list. Getting 70 subscribers to open your emails would result in a 70% open rate.   

Your email open rate gives you a good idea of how well your email marketing strategy is working. This is a good indicator of whether subscribers are paying attention to your emails.

You can also use it to determine if your email campaign strategy needs to be tweaked. A low open rate, for instance, indicates that consumers don’t go through your sales funnel as expected. 

The following 9 easy ways will help you increase your open rates…

1) Cleanse your email list

Your open rates won’t improve if you’re mailing to outdated addresses. People change jobs, unsubscribe, and stop checking their old email addresses, so you probably lose about 20% of your subscribers each year.

Keeping your email list clean allows you to focus your marketing efforts on the people who can convert into customers. In addition, cleaning your email list will reduce bounces and spam complaints, improve your sender reputation, and ensure that your emails reach your most active subscribers.

The following tips will help you keep your list healthy and clean: 

• Check your older lists – Clean out inactive or erroneous addresses with a third-party service such as Kickbox or Briteverify. 
• Periodically remove inactive subscribers – Inactive subscribers are those who have not engaged with any email in the past 6 months. Try sending a win back email campaign to re-engage your inactive subscribers before getting rid of them.
• Don’t ignore your new subscribers – Get in touch with your new subscribers and send them regular content. When a list goes dormant, engagement is diminished, and open rates decrease.

2) Perfect your timing    

Sending your emails at the right time and day is important. Timing is a huge factor in whether your subscribers open your emails and convert.      

MailChimp’s data shows that, in general, sending emails on weekdays is better than weekends. 

Furthermore, they found that 10 am is the ideal time for sending emails to recipients in their time zone.              

While you won’t be able to figure out the perfect time immediately, conducting some A/B tests can help you identify what timeframes are most effective. You can also use your email marketing software to provide data faster and easier. When you use MailChimp, it tells you when it’s the best time to send an email. MailChimp uses past statistics and other factors in their algorithm to decide this.

3) Your subject line should stand out

Your subject line is everything when it comes to email open and click rates.  Make sure your subject lines stand out. You can use these tips to craft the perfect subject line for your email marketing campaign:

• Try to pique curiosity, but don’t overdo it. It’s important to make them curious enough to open and click, but not so cryptic that they don’t understand what you’re saying.
• Include numbers. Numbers are visually appealing.
• Keep your tone friendly and conversational.
• Communicate with your subscribers in the same language and style they use with their friends.

It is always a good idea to test new subject lines. Start with the variable that you believe will have the greatest impact on conversions and open rates.

• Subject line length: Is a short subject line more effective than a long one?
• Personalization: Can personalized subject lines increase open rates?
• Offers: Are coupons more popular with your subscribers than free shipping?
• Emojis: What about emojis in subject lines? 

4) Personalize your emails     

Experian found that personalized emails deliver 6 times higher transaction rates and personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. In your subject line, you can include first names to personalize your emails.

Subscribers can also benefit from anniversary offers. Celebrate the anniversary of your relationship with them through an automated email. Keep it human and non-creepy. This is an excellent touch, as the subscriber will likely remember when and why they signed up, and more likely to remain on your list. 

Over time, you can collect more data by observing what your subscribers click and engage with, and/or by conducting a short user-directed survey.

5) Always provide value       

If you want your subscribers to open your emails, you need to offer them something tangible, valuable, and relevant at the exact moment they see the message. Ask yourself, “What will the subscriber gain from this email? Why should they open this email, and what action should they take?” If emails are valuable to subscribers, they will open them. You should clearly communicate that message in the subject line and body of your email. 

To keep your subscribers open your future emails, your content must always fulfill the promises in your subject lines. In contrast, if your subscriber is not pleased with the contents of your email, they are not likely to open it again, and they might even unsubscribe.

You can provide value to your subscribers in the following ways:

• Publish an easy-to-read how-to article that addresses a common pain point of your target audience.
• Send a notification when subscribers’ favorite items are back in stock or on sale.
• Surprise subscribers with birthday and anniversary offers—show them that you care.
• Include incredibly useful resources, such as ebooks, blog posts, or webinars.

6) Add some humor

Humor creates an instant connection with people. It’s personal, entertaining, and memorable. A clever or humorous subject line isn’t always easy to come up with, and trying to fit it into an email subject line can be challenging. 

It is more important to know your recipients and what they will respond to. The more you know about their likes and dislikes, the easier it will be to come up with a hilarious joke or a way to poke fun at them. Animated GIFs or funny videos can also be inserted into your emails. Remember, you don’t have to be a comedian to inject humor and personality into your emails. Think outside the box.

7) Keep your list active    

Don’t forget that your subscribers voluntarily joined your list in order to receive your emails. Spamming and sending too many emails is bad, but not sending any emails is equally bad. When your audience subscribes to your list, take advantage of the momentum and engage with them right away.

Suddenly sending email campaigns won’t have the same results if you haven’t sent them for a long time. Engaged subscribers to your emails are more likely to purchase your products and become part of your active community.

8) Create a re-engagement campaign

Try contacting subscribers who haven’t opened your emails recently before you scrub your list. ReturnPath found that 92% of inactive subscribers received a win back campaign in their inbox, and 12% opened it. To re-engage inactive subscribers, send them a win-back offer.

Make a list of subscribers who haven’t opened an email within a certain period of time. You can select a period of three months, six months, or a year. You can entice them to re-engage by asking them what’s going on, breaking up with them outright, or sending them a special offer. Be sure to include a confirmation link to confirm their interest in remaining on your mailing list.

They can be marked as inactive if they don’t open one or two win-back messages. The likelihood is that they’re no longer interested in your brand and that’s fine. With Grammarly’s win-back, users are reminded of the program’s features and let them know they are missed:

9) Optimize for mobile    

Most people read their emails on their smartphones. You run the risk of losing subscribers if your emails are not designed for mobile devices. Check out this mobile email statistics to help you understand the importance of mobile-friendly emails. Here are some email marketing tips for mobile users:

• Keep the formatting simple (one column), under 600px wide.
• Make the font larger. It is difficult to read small fonts on a mobile device.
• Images are not displayed by default on Android. Check to see if it looks good without them.
• Reduce load time by using smaller images.
• Call-to-action buttons should be large. Tapping larger buttons is easier with a thumb.
• Avoid placing two links next to each other. The user won’t accidentally tap the wrong one that way.                                 

These marketing tips can help any campaign get better open rates, but don’t get discouraged if you don’t see an immediate improvement. If you want to find out what tactics work best for your business and subscribers, give yourself some wiggle room to experiment.

Email Marketing can be a stressful process. Let us handle the work for you. Schedule a free 30-minute strategy call with me now and let’s discuss how we can help!