How To Increase Email Open Rates: 7 Actionable Tricks
A low email rate signals fewer business opportunities via email marketing. To be precise, if your target audience is not opening your emails, all email marketing efforts become fruitless. Your competitors are bracing themselves to pull your customers towards them. Hence, you don’t want to continue with low email open rates for too long.
So, is there any way to improve your email click-through rates?
Fortunately, yes! The tricks are easy and if you implement them right now, you will witness a significant rise in email open rates within a few days.
Before that, let’s understand what’s exactly is email open rates and what an average email open rate opens new business opportunities.
What is an Email Open Rate and Why is it Important?
Email open rate is the indicator that calculates how many percentage of opened emails for a particular email marketing campaign. In other words, the email open rate shows how well your email was able to catch a subscriber’s attention using subject lines or if your emails have landed in the spam folder.
For example, if you have a 30% email open rate, that means for every 10 emails delivered into the inbox, only 3 emails were opened.
Every marketer should regularly measure email open rates because:
- Email open rates help to analyze the email deliverability and understand subscriber-engagement statistics.
- With email open rates, spam filters can detect if an email address is genuine or not.
- Low email open rates signal you that your email content isn’t appealing and needs rectifications such as crafting helpful or interesting email content backed by a trusted source.
- You can determine the quality of your mailing list to start with such as emails being sent to the right audience and you’ve obtained their consent before beginning an email marketing conversation.
What is the good email open rate?
Anything between 16-27% is considered a good email open rate. However, the rates vary for different industries. According to Smart Insights, in 2017, the average open rate across all industries was 24.7%. Since every industry has its email marketing benchmarks, understanding the email open rates for different industries always helps.
For example, for the advertising & marketing sector, the email open rates are approx. 20.5%, for education sector it’s 28.5%, for wellness & fitness it’s 19.2% and so on.
How are email open rates calculated?
The basic formula to calculate the email open rate is
Email Open Rate = (number of unique opens)/(total emails delivered) * 100
Where Number of unique opens – how many recipients opened your email
Total emails delivered – How many email addresses are on your mailing list?
For example, if you send 20 emails and 4 of them bounce, the total delivered emails are 16. Out of 16, if 10 emails are opened, then as per the formula, your email open rate is 10/16=0.6.
When multiplied by 100, your email open rate is 60%.
You can also calculate average email open rates for multiple campaigns.
If email rates of campaign X = 10%, Campaign Y= 20%, Campaign Z = 25%
Average email open rate = (10+20+25)/3 = 18%
7 Actionable Tips to Increase Email Open Rates
1. Building a List of Verified Email addresses
Do you verify your email list?
After listing 100s of email addresses, proceeding without verification is a direct invitation to low email open rates.
So, how to verify your mailing list?
By using AeroLeads email verifier software. Email verification is of utmost necessity to identify fake emails and delete them from your mailing list. Once you confirm the authenticity of all of your emails, you can confidently connect with your prospects and present them with your product/service via email. AeroLeads email verifier validates your emails at multiple stages including
- Format
- Domain information
- SMTP check
- The response of email servers
- Accept-all domain
- Compared with its unique base of more than 100 million professional email ids
Head towards AeroLeads verifier and enter the email for verification. Hit enter and you will see the results.
AeroLeads offers four types of pricing plans.
- Take Off $49/month – 2000 credits, find emails, names, company names, etc., only 1 user.
- Climb $149/month – 8000 credits, find all contact details, integrations, and 5 users.
- Cruise $499/month – 30,000 credits, all contact details, unlimited users, and integrations.
- Enterprise – As per your requirements
Build verified email lists with AeroLeads now!
2. Experiment with Interesting email subject lines
Your email subject lines have a significant impact on email open rates. People tend to open those emails with attention-grabbing subject lines.
So, what elements are responsible for an outstanding subject line?
-
Invokes Curiosity
As Oscar Wilde says, “the public has an insatiable curiosity to know everything.” You can appeal to this curiosity in your subscribers to improve your email open rates. Curiosity-led subject lines leave out enough information that plays with your readers’ innate desire for knowledge and makes them open your email at once.
For example, the email subject line ‘we have been waiting for months…’ invokes curiosity among the readers and they open the email right away.
-
Gives personal touch
Your subscribers/customers expect to feel valued. Hence, personalization plays a key role in driving up an email campaign engagement. Emails with personalized subject lines tend to have 26% more open rates. With personalization, you resonate better with the audience. Craft personalized subject emails in the following ways:
First names – Observe your email inbox. Subject lines with your name grab your attention quickly. Using your reader’s first name in the subject line feel them known and valued.
Interests – Knowing your customer’s interests is absolute. Is your audience interested in email finder software? Your subject line must talk about the same and not about the keyword analysis tools.
Birthdays and Anniversaries – Emails with subject lines “Happy Birthday” or “Happy Anniversary” tend to have more open rates and engagement. If you aren’t aware of the dates, survey to know their special days.
Transaction history – Track your customers’ previous purchases and let them know about relevant and latest arrivals. They’ll be happy to return as you’re paying attention to their requirements.
Urgency – Subject lines with a sense of urgency motivate people to open emails quickly as they don’t want to miss the opportunity. “Only three items left”, “Last day to purchase the course for $100”
For example, LUCKY BRAND’s email creates a sense of urgency by mentioning “Last Day” to get the discount and encourage customers to purchase quickly.
3. Best time to send emails
Sending the right emails at the right time carries the utmost importance. According to HubSpot, the highest click-to-open rates are 10 AM at 21%, 1 PM at 22%, and a spike near 6 PM. Research shows that B2B emails sent during weekdays around 10 AM have good open rates.
To understand this concept clearly, GetResponse surveyed 4 billion emails sent by their customers to large brands during 5 months in 2019. It was discovered that higher open rates occurred on Monday and Tuesdays while the click-to-open ratios were good on Saturdays and Sundays.
Note that the success of your email campaign doesn’t completely depend on great email open rates. If people are opening your emails, sign-up for your service, purchasing your product, or taking a free trial, then you’re doing everything right.
4. Email Segmentation
Email segmentation can drastically improve your email open rates. Research shows that marketers who used the segmented approach have found a 760% increase in their revenue as compared to non-segmented campaigns.
Email segmentation is the division of your email subscribers into smaller segments or more targeted groups based on chosen characteristics. Then, you can craft unique emails for each segment. With improvement in email open rates, you’ll soon see your emails landing in readers’ inboxes instead of spam folders.
Email marketers use segmented email marketing based on the following aspects:
Demographics
Segmenting emails based on demographic information such as age, gender, job role, and location ensures your email reaches the right audience at the right time. You can collect all this data using the website form during the signup process.
Preferences and Interests
Segmenting emails based on readers’ preferences and interests works wonders! To know their interests, you can conduct a survey and allow subscriber self-segment where readers decide what types of emails they expect.
Buying Behaviour
Segmenting by buying behaviours like page visits, form fills, or email opens is a great way to push more sales. You can further segment this into ‘regular buyers’ and ‘one-time buyers’. For regular ones, send emails that encourage upsells, upgrades, the latest product arrivals, or offer discounts.
For one-time buyers, send emails that will encourage them to come back and purchase again. Send emails offering personalized discounts or the latest news/blogs to remind them why your product is the best for their problems.
Abandoned shopping carts
Ecommerce website owners are well-aware of cart abandonment. With the right email segmentation, you can target those who have abandoned your shopping cart and encourage them to buy the product they desired. Offer incentives such as free shipping, discounts, and coupons that’ll push them to open your email and take the action.
For example,
5. Updated email address lists
When visitors sign-up for updates, you get a list of email addresses and start your email marketing campaign. After a certain time frame, some subscribers change their email addresses for some reason or some may lose interest in your emails. Such reasons lead to low email open rates.
Hence, keep verifying your email addresses every month using a quick email verification software such as AeroLeads and update the mailing list. If you feel people are losing interest in your emails, restrategize your mailing campaign according to their interests or trends and see what works.
6. Avoid spam filters
A sudden drop in email open rates could be the result of your emails landing straight into the readers’ spam folders. This is because of email spam filters that use advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect unwanted, harmful, unsolicited emails and prevent them from going into the primary inbox.
To avoid your emails landing in spam folders, follow these techniques:
Use an authorized sender name
A study by Finances Online shows that 45% of email recipients will click spam based solely on the info they see in the ‘from’ field, name, and email address. Use email addresses of standard format i.e. yournamelastname@domain.com.
Use a double opt-in form
Double opt-in forms encourage your subscribers to take the extra step and confirm their signup through a separate email. With this approach, they’re unlikely to mark your email as spam.
Avoid spammy words, misleading subject lines, or attachments
Trigger phrases such as ‘lost weight fast, and ‘Earn $$ in 10 days’ easily get caught by spam filters. Write subject lines carefully.
Personalized and segmented emails
As explained above personalized and segmented emails helps to boost email open rates. Personalized and audience-based interest emails establish a genuine conversation with your readers. Since readers respond to such emails, you are safe from getting caught by spam filters.
7. Followup emails
Many times, even after the right strategy, your email may not receive any response. That doesn’t mean you’ve to give up or rethink the entire marketing strategy.
Sometimes, your subscribers are busy or might have unknowingly overlooked your emails. Further, even if they’ve seen your emails, not all people are ready to buy right after they receive the first email.
Studies have shown nearly 80% of subscribers refuse four times before saying the final ‘yes’. That’s where follow-up emails help you. Follow-up emails encourage your prospects to consider your product and increase the chances of conversions. They also help in filtering uninterested audiences and building brand trust.
Follow these guidelines while sending follow-up emails:
- Your first follow-up email should hit their inbox after 3 days of sending the first email.
- No more than 2-3 follow-up emails.
- Include a compulsory CTA button
- Your tone should be polite and content offering value.
- Include reference to previous emails
Over to you
As you can see email open rates matter a lot while analyzing your email marketing strategy. Getting the reader to open your email and take action needs a lot of effort at the backend. The techniques mentioned in this article will guide you in crafting better emails according to your buyer persona which will improve your email open rates.
Have you tried any of these techniques before? Share your experience with us right now!
FAQs
1.Question=”How do I fix low email open rates? ”
Answers= Low email open rates result mainly from using weak email subject lines, lack of personalization, using spammy words, wrong timing, or using aggressive words. To improve email open rates, use the tricks and techniques suggested in the above article and you’ll soon see positive results.
2.Question=“How do I fix low email open rates? ”
Answers= Low email open rates result mainly from using weak email subject lines, lack of personalization, using spammy words, wrong timing, or using aggressive words. To improve email open rates, use the tricks and techniques suggested in the above article and you’ll soon see positive results.
4.Question=“Is a 10% email open rate good? ”
Answers= No. There’s a lot of space for improvement. As mentioned before, anything between 16-27% is considered a good email open rate. Even if you categorize by industry type, the minimum expected is 19% which is the average email open rate for the electronics industry.
5.Question=“What element increases an email open rate? ”
Answers= Though email open rates depend on the majority of factors, the most influential element is your email subject lines. Nearly 33% of email recipients open their emails by reading the subject lines. Hence, work towards crafting genuine, interesting, and value-adding email subject lines that will make subscribers open your emails on the go!
6.Question=“Can email subject lines have special characters? ”
Answers= Yes. One or two special characters per subject line are fine but not more than that. Otherwise, readers will feel those lines as spam and may discard your email.
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