How to Improve Your Email Open Rates

How to Improve Your Email Open Rates You are all done with creating optin forms, email list and segmenting them. But all your efforts will go waste if your emails won’t get opened. Below are the factors which determine whether or not your emails get opened.

Avoid Spam Filters

How to Improve Your Email Open Rates The first and the foremost issue is when your emails get into your subscriber’s spam folder. Here are some of the best practices to avoid your emails to falling into the spam folder:

Make sure your subscribers have opted-in to receive your emails.
Use verified domains to send your emails.
Code clean your email template.
Personalize the “To:” field of your email campaign by using merge tags.
Use good IP address to send your emails, i.e., the IP address that has not been used by someone else who has sent spam in the past.
Include your location.
Include easy email opt-out way from your emails.
Avoid use of “buy”, “clearance”, “discount”, “cash” etc. words as they are referred as spam-trigger words.
Ask your subscribers to add you to their address book and show how to wishlist your emails.

You can use good email marketing service to handle all the above.

Remove Inactive Subscribers

At some point of time, some of your subscribers might have changed their email address, or are not interested anymore in your products and offers, or are not interacting or engaging with you from past six months. It’s a great marketing strategy to remove those inactive users from your email list to keep your list fresh. Before removing them, try out last to re-engage your inactive subscribers by asking them if they still want to stay subscribed. You can also keep your email list fresh by interacting with your subscribers every once in a while and ask whether they would like to update their information and preferences or not.

Stand Out with Your Subject Line

Your subject line should be effective enough to stand out. Here are some tips for creating an effective subject line.

Use a conversational, fun, and joking tone.
Speak as per your subscriber’s language and style.
Try to keep using numbers as they are eye-catching.
Make a subject line that can make your subscribers curious enough to open it.

Think of One Person While Writing Your Subject Line

It’s natural to think of more than 1000 people when you are drafting a subject line but it would be far effective if you think for an individual person. Draft your subject line with a personal subject line and a personalized message. It shows that you value for your customers. You should know your buyer persona in order to write one such for each one of them. It takes time, but it is effective.

Write Valuable Content

Your subscribers are more likely to open your emails if they find your content good and valuable enough. If subscribers are displeased by checking the content of your email, then they are not going to open your email ever. It’s like now or never situation for you. Make the content a quality one. The higher the value and quality of your content, the better will be your open rates.

Optimize Your Send Timings

Timings are the most important factor when you are sending emails to your subscribers. You should perform A/B testing to check which timings are giving you better results. Check on which time your emails are getting opened by your subscribers and explore those in your email campaigns. You might be thinking which time is the optimal one? It totally depends on who you are and whom you are sending emails to. Here is the data from MailChimp if you look for the day of weeks, and hours of a day. In general, the optimal time of sending emails is on weekdays and at 10 AM in recipient’s time zone. Their deeper examination resulted that type of content that you send through email has a significant effect on the peak timings as well as age, location, and occupation of the recipient.