Your open rate will make or break the success of your newsletter. If people aren’t opening your emails, then no one is reading, no one is clicking, and most definitely no one is buying. That’s why you need to improve your open rate using the following 17 ideas…
1. Get Permission
This is a given, but I’m going to say it anyway: before you send email to anyone, make sure you have their explicit permission to do so.
Note: Acquiring email addresses using a confirmed opt-in process is much safer in this regard than a single opt-in process. That’s because anyone can put their friend’s (or enemy’s!) name into an opt-in form, and that person will start receiving the newsletter… even though they never requested it.
Instead, use a confirmed opt-in. This is where someone fills in your opt-in form, and then they have to click on a link in their email to confirm that they requested your newsletter. This ensures that you’re getting working email addresses from your subscribers, plus it ensures that only those who requested your emails are going to receive them.
2. Set Expectations Early
You should start setting expectations about your newsletter right on the opt-in page, as well as in the first email. Ideally, you should remind subscribers of this information from time to time.
Specifically, your opt in page and first couple emails should answer the following:
- What is this newsletter about?
- What sort of content can the readers expect?
- How long is the newsletter, in general?
- How often will the subscriber receive the newsletter?
Next…
3. Choose Your From Field Carefully
The next step is to make sure your audience instantly recognizes the “From” field of your emails.
For example, let’s suppose people joined your list through an opt-in page that was branded with your business name. However, you then insert your first and last name in the “From” field. If people are used to your business branding, they may not recognize your name – and that means they won’t open your email. As such, be sure to choose a “From” field that’s recognizable to your audience. (And don’t change this field unless there is an extremely good reason to do so, otherwise your open rate is likely to drop.)
4. Acquire Good Email Addresses
Sometimes people will join your list to get a lead magnet, and they’ll use one of their “throwaway” email addresses to do so. End result? They don’t check those addresses, so they’re not seeing or opening your emails.
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Sometimes marketers specifically request that subscribers give their “best” email addresses. That helps, but it’s not perfect. What you’ll want to do is, where it makes sense, is create a lead magnet that requires people to check their email regularly, such as a multipart ecourse. That way, users need to give you an email address they’re willing to check on a regular basis.
TIP: You’ll also acquire better email addresses if your email marketing strategy revolves around driving highly targeted traffic to your lead page. For example, you might use pay per click marketing, and bid on focused, longtail keywords that are highly relevant to your site. E.G., “weight loss for women over 40” is very targeted versus something like “how to lose weight.”
Next…
5. Publish on a Regular Schedule
The next tip for boosting your open rate is to publish frequently and regularly, meaning at least weekly. This keeps your name in front of your audience to build recognition, plus helps you build trust over time as subscribers see your high-quality content.
6. Build Anticipation
The idea here is to get subscribers excited about the next email that will be landing in their inbox. To that end, build anticipation by sharing the benefits of the next email. You can also build curiosity if possible.
Here’s an email template for building anticipation:
“Next time you’ll discover my #1 trick for [getting a benefit/desired outcome] – I’m almost certain you’ve never seen this before, so be sure to keep an eye on your inbox for the next email arriving [insert when it will arrive. E.G., “Tuesday” or “in 48 hours”].
7. Test and Track Your Emails
Another way to boost your open rates is by testing and tracking your email campaigns so that you know what your audience responds to the best. For example, you can test and track subject lines for an autoresponder series until you discover the line that gets you the best open rates. (You’ll learn more about this topic in a later guide.)
Note: many email service providers also provide tools for tracking individual opens. You can then follow up with those specific individuals who didn’t open your last email. For example, if you sent them a promo, you might send up a follow up “last chance” email the next day.
8. Create High-Quality Content
I alluded to this above. The point here is to consistently publish high-quality content in your newsletter. Most people will open at least your first few emails to see what your newsletter is about. If you don’t impress them right away (and continue to impress them), they’re going to cease opening your emails.
That’s why you should never push out subpar content just to get something to your readers. Instead, focus on publishing the highest quality content possible, and you’ll have subscribes who are eager to open all your emails.
9. Develop a Series
The idea here is to create an enticing email series that gets your readers opening your emails repeatedly over time. Once they’ve completed the series, they’ll be impressed with your high-quality content and they’ll be “trained” to keep opening your emails. Indeed, you can even start up a second series once the first one is over.
For example, you might create a three-month, 12-email long series titled, “The 12 Secrets for Boosting Your Metabolism.”
10. Provide Surprises
Another way to increase your open rate is to provide occasional surprises in your emails, such as access to a valuable product. For example, you might offer a valuable, in-demand report, video or app from time to time. Your subscribers will keep opening your emails, because they never know when there might be a surprise inside.
11. Optimize for Mobile
A large number of your subscribers are likely opening your emails from their phones. Depending on your niche audience, you may even find that the vast majority of your subscribers are doing so. If these subscribers open your first email and struggle to read it, they’re not going to be eager to open your subsequent emails.
That’s why you’ll want to optimize your email messages for mobile. Specifically:
- Use a responsive design that looks great across devices.
- Space out links so they’re easy to tap.
- Format for easy readability, being sure to incorporate plenty of white space.
Next…
12. Send At the Right Time
If you want to get more people opening your email, then send emails at a time when you know your subscribers are not only going to be online, but they also have time to engage with your email.
The best way to determine this time (and day) is by testing and tracking your email campaigns. Split your subscribers into random groups, and send your emails at different times of the day to determine the best time for your audience. Most of the bigger email service providers offer built-in tracking tools to make this task easy.
Need a good starting point? Then look at when your subscribers initially joined your list. If a good chunk of them joined around 9:00am EST on Tuesdays, then that’s likely to be a good time to send out your emails.
13. Segment Your List
Another way to boost your open rate is by segmenting your list, and then sending out highly targeted emails to these segments.
Check out these different ideas on ways to segment your list:
- Separate buyers from prospects.
- Segment buyers according to the exact products they purchased.
- Segment prospects according to the exact lead magnets they requested.
- Segment your list according to events they’ve participated in, such as contests or webinars.
- Segment your list according to buyer behavior, such as people who ONLY buy with coupons versus those who nearly always pay full price.
- Segment your list according to whether they opened your last email and/or clicked on the links inside and/or took some other action.
- Ask new subscribers to tell you which topics they’re interested in when they’re in the process of joining your list.
For example, if you segment by product, then you can send out a targeted promo for a product and exclude everyone who’s already purchased that particular product.
This strategy helps ensure subscribers are only getting emails that are relevant and of interest to them, which in turn increases your open/read rates.
How do you segment? Fortunately this is easy if you choose an email service provider that has segmenting tools built in. Many of them do, especially the bigger and more well-known services.
Note: We’ll discuss this topic in more detail in a later guide.
14. Clean Your List
If you’ve had your list for some time, then you’re going to have some subscribers who never open your emails. This may be because they no longer own the email address, they don’t check it, or they see your emails and just trash them rather than unsubscribing.
What you want to do is clean up your list using the following tips:
- Delete email addresses that are bouncing.
- Send a short three-email series to re-engage cold subscribers (e.g., offer enticing freemiums and content).
- Give subscribers a “last chance” to remain as subscribers.
If an email address is truly cold and doesn’t respond to your re-engagement efforts, then delete it.
15. Avoid Filters
Sometimes subscribers don’t open your emails simply because they never see them. In most cases when this happens, the email lands in the subscriber’s spam/bulk folder.
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The first thing to do to avoid this is to tell new subscribers how to whitelist your email address (and why they should take this step).
The second step is to run every email you plan on sending through a spam tool (which is part of the features many email service providers offer). This tool will check if your email includes common spam triggers, such as certain words (pharmaceutical, fast money, etc.). You can then tweak the email to reduce its spam score, which increases the chances of it landing in the recipients’ inboxes.
16. Use a Reliable ESP
You may be tempted to build your list on the cheapest budget possible, which includes signing up with the least expensive ESP (email service provider). Alternatively, you may decide to do it all yourself, by installing email software on your domain and managing your email list yourself.
Both of these actions are a mistake, as they can negatively impact the deliverability rate of your emails. That’s because the well-known and reputable ESPs devote a significant amount of resources to ensuring any emails sent off their servers get delivered to their intended recipients.
Smaller companies don’t have the resources to do this, so their deliverability rate is much lower. Likewise, if you send emails from your own server and you’re not engaging in strategies to increase deliverability, then you too will suffer from low deliverability rates.
The solution? Stick with a well-known, established email service provider that advertises good deliverability and uptime rates.
17. Create Enticing Subject Lines
You’ve probably been waiting for this tip, because it’s one of the bigger keys to getting more people to open your emails. If you create benefit-driven, relevant subject lines that get the clicks – and you test your subject lines to get the best response – then you’re likely to see your open rates significantly increase.
Note: This topic is so important that I’ve devoted an entire Emailcome guide to it! See Guide #5 for more information.
Now let’s wrap things up…
Conclusion
One of the big keys to the success of your email marketing campaign is whether people open your emails or not. However, there’s not just one thing you can magically do that will make everyone open all your emails. Instead, you’ll want to put the above 17 tips and ideas to work so you can start enjoying more higher open rates, which directly lead to more clicks and sales!
Keep Reading: 17 Ways To Create Subject Lines That Standout In The Inbox
Previous: 17 Places To Look For Inspiration & Ideas To Write About (That Your Subscribers Will Respond To)
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