We all want our emails to be seen by more people, the first step in achieving that is simple - get more people to send it to (in the right way through! No purchasing data! Webforms are the way forward!), but once you start to have that bigger audience, you need to get them to actually open your emails.
That is the new challenge you face and one that can seem harder than climbing Mount Everest. So how do you get better open rates from your growing audience?
Here are a few simple tips and tricks that you can try: -
- Who's the sender?
Too often we see emails being sent from "No-Reply@" email addresses or generic "Info@" email addresses - put yourself in the shoes of the recipient, how does that look? To me, getting an email from a "No-Reply@" email is unfriendly and almost signals that they don't want me to talk to them. Try sending something from a named email address, for instance my emails come from my email address, that way people who I send bulk emails to, can easily reply and talk to me - why hide?
The Address Name is also important, along with the subject line, it is the first thing that gets seen before people actually open the email. This means you need to make it nice and clear who the message is coming from, another example of that is the fact my emails come from the address name "Matthew from InTouch" - no messing, no hiding and in an instant people know that it's an email which has come from a person and they know which company within that first glance.
- First Impressions Count - The Subject Line
When the email is sent, the first thing people see will be the subject line, if it is too long - it will be cut off, if it is too short - it won't get noticed, you need to find the balance. Something between 25 to 35 characters is the sweet spot. That should be your first aim.
Personalise it, don't leave it as generic. Think of it as trying to get someones attention in the street, if you shout "HEY!" it might get you noticed, probably not by the right person, but if you shout their name " STEVE!", guess what....Steve will notice. So why not simply add the tag %FirstName% into the email subject line? Stand out from the crowd in their inbox by the simple use of personalising the email.
DON'T SHOUT AND OVER USE !£?$%^"&* SYMBOLS - Avoid too many capitals and dodgy symbols, not only will it drag your email into the spam folder, where it will spend the rest of eternity but your reputation will suffer as a result.
Don't be afraid to ask a question - one way to get people to open your email is to intrigue them, ask them a question that gives them food for thought, mix that in with personalisation and see what happens! Something like "Matthew, can you get better opens today?"
Magic Numbers - "15 Movies you have to see" it's the same as a magazine headline what promises you 7 ways to get your beach body ahead of the summer, stating the number of tips, thoughts, ideas or things they need to do grabs the reader's attention. It puts them at ease and more importantly, they know what to expect.
- Re-engage with people who aren't opening your emails
We would all love everyone to read our emails, but sometimes, we just don't get that. One tip that you can try is to send out effectively an "are you still out there" email. Something that asks the recipient to do something for a reward, it could be as simple as a link to click to update their profile using an update form, that way you can get some more information whilst also re-engaging with people.
- Timing it right
When you first start out with email marketing, you might not know when the best time to send your emails is. The best you might be able to do is an educated guess based upon your industry IE if you provide a lunch service, sending it out at 3pm each day isn't great, you've missed the rush for their lunch, in that industry you would want to aim to send your email out for around 10am/11am which would land just in time for lunch. The key here is to then use the information that comes back from campaigns to find that perfect time for you, your business and of course, your customers.
From there you can build your future campaigns and send them out at the right time for your audience.
Another key note is to build consistency, as humans, we are creatures of habit at the best of times, so if you start delivering your emails to people at 5pm on a Friday as an end of week digest, then you need to continue to do send them as your readers will expect them and subconsciously look out for them.