Email marketing is a great tool for business owners to reach their audience. There are many reasons to send emails, but at the end of the day, you want to be sure your audience gets the message. That’s why it’s important to have high email open rates – the metric that measures how many recipients actually opened the email. The tricky part of this marketing strategy is how to get recipients to open them. Below are several steps you can take to improve open rates and strengthen your email marketing.
1. Personalize the Sender
Make an impact on the receiver of your email by personalizing it with an actual name rather than your company name. For example, getting emails from John or Kelly will have better email open rates than getting an email from Top Dog Bakery. As much as people love your business, you’ll get a better response using the CEO or a designated representative of the company. I’ve used this tactic for clients that use email marketing, and have seen the difference this small change can make.
Related Article: Strategies to Improve Your Email Marketing Campaigns
2. Lose Lengthy Subject Lines
A study by Retention Science that analyzed data from 260 million emails revealed that subject lines with 6 to 10 words deliver better email open rates. You may consider your own experience when it comes to emails. Will “Let Us Help You Improve Engagement for Your Small Business with These 10 Tips” pull you in more than “10 Secrets to Becoming a Successful Business Owner”? It can be a challenge to cut down subject lines, but think of it as a game! Deliver your message with personality and in as few words as possible. All in all, it’s better to be concise and punchy than to be excessively wordy.
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3. Send Emails at Optimal Hours
As a business owner, you have a lot to do and not enough time. You might not think that sending out emails during a specific day of the week or hour of the day matters, but it does! Weekends typically have lower email open rates, so sending your emails during the week is ideal. Time also plays a factor in open rates. Consider the 9-5 workday. People will often open their emails a few hours into the day and will check emails again after lunch. A Get Response study showed that Tuesdays were the optimal day of the week for best open rates, and send times with the highest open rates were around 10 am and after 1 pm.
Other Email Open Rate Tips to Consider:
- Use buzzwords (but be wary of clickbait titles)
- Try pop culture references in the subject lines
- Use the preview line to explain the subject line
78% of marketers in 2020 said email is important to overall company success, compared to 71% in 2019.
Is your business interested in implementing an effective email marketing strategy? At KWSM, we create fully-customized marketing plans to attract and engage your audience.
CONTACT US to learn about how we can create an email marketing strategy for your business.
