Email marketing tips for better open rates translate into a successful email campaign if you follow exactly what I mention in this post. Although this is just one of the key metrics to measure your success, it remains the first goal to get more conversions or sales.
This is simply because higher open rates potentially mean more sales. That’s why email marketers focus on creating catchy and compelling subject lines to get their emails opened.
Before we jump into our tips, let’s understand what is Email Open Rates first.
In simple terms, the Email Open Rate is the percentage of the number of subscribers who opened your email over the total number of your subscribers. Usually, this measurement is used for email campaigns when businesses want to promote a new product, deals or promos, discounts, and for sending newsletters too.
It is considered the most important of all the metrics of email marketing because of the following:
- Customer’s perception of your brand – Are your emails helpful? Or perhaps viewed by your subscribers as a nuisance or spam email?
- Customer’s interest – Are your subscribers interested in your offers or in what you have to say?
- Quality of the mailing list – Are you sending the emails to the right audience? Did you gain informed consent before starting an email marketing dialogue?
- Conversion and Sales – Do your subscribers purchase your emails? Are you able to follow through to close that sale?
In 2020, the benchmark for email open rate is about 17.80%. It may be a bit high for start-up businesses but there are things you can do to improve this number. This brings us back to our email marketing tips.
In this topic, we have put together the most critical things to consider to help improve your email open rates. These steps are very doable and can be easily applied to your email marketing strategies. Interested? Great! Let’s check them out.
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My 6 Email Marketing Tips
1. Emoji’s In Subject
Adding an emoji in your subject line will make your email stand out amongst the other emails that your recipient receives because it will draw their eyes to your email.
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Sometimes the words you use in subject lines are hit or miss as well. However, some words are proven effective in improving email open rates and these words are used by many known brands or digital marketers. You may already be using some of these words as they are quite popular. But some of the words could be something new that you can use in your future email subject lines.
- % off
- 24-hour giveaway
- Available
- Back in stock
- Congratulations
- Deserve
- Freebie
- Hurry
- Important
- Last chance
- Latest
- Limited time
- New
- Off selected
- On sale now
- Plus
- Promotional
- Special
- Thanks
- Voucher
- You or Your
Another important thing to consider is the use of capitalization on your subject lines. All-caps subject lines could come across as spam messages to your subscribers. Aside from your email going straight to the trash bin, it can also potentially hurt the image of your brand that you worked so hard to build up.
Also, try to use numbers whenever possible instead of full words. Email subject lines with numbers stand out better as they are easier to read. For example, instead of using “Only one hour left” or “Buy two get one free”, it is better to use “Only 1 hour left” or “Buy 2 and get 1 free.”
2. Image Of You
Having a small image of you within the email personalizes the email and reminds them of who is sending them the email. This also adds a level of trust.
Perhaps the most challenging part is building and maintaining a brand with your image of you. This is also the same with email marketing. The tone, format, and design of your email should stay true to the image you want your customers to remember. Staying within your brand’s identity helps in retaining your image to your audience.
This includes your email subject title as well. When you have uniform email subject titles, your subscribers already know that the email came from you. Having a different tone of voice or style can confuse your subscribers and could potentially make your brand forgettable. It can also cause your subscribers to unsubscribe from your mailing list.
3. Ask a question
By asking a question in the email adds a level of engagement by ensuring the recipient that you are available for any questions and making them feel a part of the actual email.
This strategy has been used by many email marketers and has been proven effective.
Questions raise curiosity and when effectively used in email subject lines, subscribers are lured to open the email. You can use questions such as the following:
- Do you like budget finds?
- Love freebies?
- How about a reward for your hard work?
The questions can be short and simple but they create feelings of excitement that lure your subscribers to open the email. Most people would love to see what they can get for a cheap price or how they can get a freebie. Make a list of these questions and identify which ones sound interesting based on your customer’s profile or even for yourself. Use these questions as your email subject lines and observe the improvement in your open rates.
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4. Ask For A Reply
People inherently assume that marketing emails are sent from not a real email. Asking for a reply gives the recipient a good feeling that they can hit the reply button and give their feedback.
When you ask for a reply, you’re able to establish a perception to your customers that you want to be connected to them. But not all email marketing campaigns require a reply from your subscribers.
You can ask for a reply when you’re asking for feedback or survey participation, or you have sent an email before which requires a follow-up. And sometimes you can also ask for a reply when a subscriber expresses their interest in your products or services.
However, there are things that you need to consider when asking for a reply.
- Wait for at least 48 to 72 hours before sending another email for a reply
- Hastily asking for a reply could make your subscriber ignore your email instead of responding. Usually, this creates a perception that you’re being too assertive to push for sales which could backfire and could even harm your brand.
- Ask for a response in your subject line
- Asking for a response in your subject line sends a message that a reply is needed. Follow this up with a message explaining the value of their responses and what this will do for them as your customers. For example, “We love to hear from you! Tell us what you think!”
- Be personal
- Addressing your customer’s name in the subject title establishes a personal connection to your subscribers. When your subscribers see that it is addressed to them directly, there’s a higher chance of them opening the email and checking it out.
- Use a moderate amount of positive or negative emotional words
- There’s a study that using emotional words in moderation increases the response rate of 10 to 15% in comparison to neutral or over-emotional emails. For example, “We have a great deal for you and we’ll be sad if you miss it!” or “Sharing our happiness with you!”
- Send the emails in the morning
- There’s a higher email open rate when an email is sent anywhere between 6 AM to 7 AM. This is according to a study conducted on half a million emails which states that there is about a 45% increase in email responses when sent during these times. On the other hand, emails sent out beyond those times had fewer responses.
5. Short & To The Point
With the busy lives that we all live, it is important to deliver your information quickly. Ensure you deliver your main point and message within the first paragraph of your email.
Try to keep it short and to the point in the subject lines as well. Your subscribers don’t have time to read long subject lines especially when they are swamped with a lot of emails in their inboxes.
A shorter and concise email subject line can:
- Be read quickly
- Grab the attention of the receiver
- Increases your subscriber’s curiosity
Try to create an email subject line with five words or less if possible. Follow this up with a concise and clear message starting from the first line. The first line of an email message would usually appear as a preview in some email clients depending on how the email view was set up. Making the most of this feature can help in boosting your open rates.
6. Be Funny
Show them you are human and have a funny bone! Doing this will build their trust factor with you and make read your emails every time you send out a message to your recipients.
Funny email subject lines work perfectly as well, but do not get carried away. It immediately stands out among the dull emails surrounding it. When your subject lines put a smile on your subscribers, there’s a high chance that your emails will be opened.
Therefore, it can boost your email open rates right away. The following are good examples of funny email subject lines:
- “Since we can’t all win the lottery …”
- “You Break It, We Fix It”
- “This Deal is so good; it should be illegal”
- “Don’t be that guy on Zoom. You know, the one without pants.”
Concerning funny email subject lines, sometimes emoticons, special characters, or punctuation marks are also used. Try to lay low on using them or only when you feel that it is necessary to use one or two of them. Putting too many of these on your email subject title can make it appear unprofessional and your subscribers may feel that it is another spam email.
Although making funny subject lines sounds exciting to make, it needs careful thought and creativity. The last thing you want to do is to make a bad joke which can go wrong and get you plenty of unsubscribes. It may take a while to regain your customer’s loyalty again to resubscribe to your mailing list. Furthermore, you lost customers who are patronizing your products and services.
Final thoughts
Implementing these steps in your email marketing strategy may not boost your email open rates in a snap. It will take time to understand your customer’s profiles and finally know what email subject lines they like better.
Most email marketers do several tests to check which strategy works best for a specific customer profile. Improve on these findings and you’ll notice promising results eventually. And when you have become skilled at it, you’ll also increase your conversions and sales in no time.
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Thank you for these tips. The first one, adding emoji and number in the title, seems like a really good suggestion. When I think back to my own email habits, those are the ones that catch my attention first.
Now that there are so many email marketers out there, it’s important to make our emails more eye-catching and engaging. Thanks so much.
hey Clark, thank you for chiming in. I had to learn the hard way, but it started to pay off once I use the tips that I have mention in this post. It is really not a competition with others but more like giving value to your audience. There are really sincere people out there that are looking for answers, and that should be our focus.
I had to save this so I can return to it again but there were some great tips in here. Things I hadn’t connected with like the emojis making a mom and asking them direct questions. Starting a conversation leads to starting a relationship and bringing people back again and again.
Could not have said it better. You really have to look at it as a conversation and get off the salesperson bandwagon. The internet is changing and we have to keep ahead of the changes if we are going to have a successful business online.
This is a very useful article for me where it is the first time I came across the term Email Open Rates. I never know it is possible to track how many emails got opened? I know MS Outlook has the read receipt function but marketing emails surely doesn’t request for it. Or does it actually do so in the background? Seems like it? I like the various tips you have presented which will help me in my email marketing initiative at some point.
Richard is something you definitely to pay attention to if you want to build a successful and responsive list for your business. Like it always says: ” the money is in the list”. That is a proven fact in the long term if you build it right as I have mentioned in this article.