Top 10 Strategies to Boost Email Open Rates

1. Outdated Email List

No matter how consistently you send emails to your subscribers, there will always be people who don’t want to receive your emails. They might not be interested in your product/service anymore, or they don’t find your content valuable.

Before sending any email, it is fair to ask your subscribers to opt-in for emails. Tricking your customers into signing up for emails is not an appropriate practice. It often leads to ending up in the spam folder, ignoring, or landing in the trash.

2. Email Sending Time

Let us break it to you: there is no right time for sending emails. Although many businesses prefer sending emails during standard work hours, there’s no hard and fast rule about it.

People usually choose their mail checking time according to their lifestyle and field of work–some do it in the morning, evening, or even at night.

As there’s no setup time for it, send emails at various times of the day, check what time works best for your organization, and stick to it.

3. Boring Subject Lines

Subject lines may be short, but they play a vital role in a mail campaign’s success. A surveyconducted by Exceleads reveals that 33% of all mail recipients open emails only based on the subject line.

So, if your mail open rate is lower than you expected, you might want to rewrite your mail subject lines.

Your subject line should contain as much information as possible. Also, including your prospect’s name in the mail subject line personalizes your message and increases mail open rates.

4. Lack of Personalization

In another insightful survey, 63% of participants said they don’t open emails if they are not personalized. If you are constantly seeing a decline in your mail open rates, it might be because of non-personalization.

A/B testing or split testing can be an ideal solution for that. You can write multiple personalized copies and test them within your organization before sending them out.

5. Not Providing Value

Providing value is absolutely necessary for better performance of your emails. If your subscribers have gained nothing from your previous emails, the chances of a lower mail open rate are high.

So, try to provide value to your customers. Add personalized problem-solving measures, stats, or informative insights to your emails.

1. Keep Your List Updated

A bunch of unresponsive subscribers on your list means you are practically missing out on potential revenue.

You may already know that many marketing experts suggest consistently sending emails to your subscribers so that the communication doesn’t dry up, which can improve email open rates over time.

You can safely assume that some of your subscribers may have changed their mail addresses or aren’t interested in your product/service for the time being.

So, it is essential to clean up your list and remove inactive subscribers from it. You can consider any subscriber who is not active for at least six months or more.

There are a few ways you can win back your subscribers. Here’s how:

• Run a win-back mail campaign
• Offer them personalized email content and information
• Run a survey and offer a token prize for participation

Cleaning your mail list is a lot easier with a list cleaning service. Smartlead.ai generates leads through multi-channel research (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, email, etc.) and verifies them to offer you an updated and relevant mailing list.

2. Humor Can Save the Day

Nothing beats a humorous chuckle, right? It works for mail as well.

If you want to increase your mail open rates, focus on writing compelling yet humorous mails. However, try to refrain from using sarcasm in your mails.

Using humor in your mail content helps build connection and trust. Humorous mail can create a sense of trust and friendship, and personal touch to communication.

In order to be funny, don’t forget to provide value to your customers.

3. A/B Testing is a Must

Split testing or A/B testing is an impromptu user experience researching method. Have you ever written more than one mail subject line and been confused about which one to finalize? Well, you can easily decide through A/B testing.

It helps you get a clear understanding of the drawbacks of your campaign and how to improve email open rates.

Not only subject lines or mail content but you can also A/B test images, CTAs, templates, etc.

A/B testing (split testing) is a proven methodology to test your content based on user intent and helps increase email open rates.

4. Titillate Curiosity

Mail marketing has only two purposes: to provide value to your customer, and the last but most important one is to get them to take action. So, what can you do other than add a CTA?

The subject line is the first thing that catches one’s eye, and when crafted correctly, it can significantly improve email open rates. So, writing a subject line that can trigger your audience’s Curiosity can help you increase mail open rates.

Teasing, for instance, works best as a titillating subject line. You can also take advantage of your subscribers’ FOMO to create an air of suspense.

Here are some excellent examples:

• ‘Did you know….’
• ‘All your friends are here’
• ‘Daniel, I am dying to tell you that….’
• ‘Have you heard about….’

This is how you can create engaging subject lines to hook our audience. It will increase mail open rates and conversions.

5. Express with Emojis

Although it is a much-debated topic, using emojis to enhance your email content can help you generate higher email open rates which directly contributes to how to improve email open rates.

Many experts will argue that emojis are inappropriate for mail, specifically business mail. But we beg to differ.

Emojis are a popular communication medium nowadays, and it indeed has their place in business emails as well. So, stop worrying and utilize emojis to make your mails enjoyable.

It will increase not only the readability but also deliverability rates.

6. Segment Your Email List

According to a recent survey conducted by Lyris, companies that segment their mail list tend to experience 39% higher email open rates. 28% of the total participants saw lower unsubscribe rates.

Even if your mail is optimized and lands directly in the primary folder, your audience may not open it because of the intent. If your campaign doesn’t provide any value to the subscribers, they will not open it.

The data mentioned above also proves the same. If your mail open rates go up, you should segment your mail list for different email campaigns.

7. Address by the Name

Rather than using salutations like ‘Dear subscriber,’ ‘To whom it may concern,’ or ‘Dear valued customer,’ try to build a solid connection with your customer by referring to them by their first names.

The psychological explanation is that people feel validated whenever someone addresses them by their first Name.

Whenever you send a mail addressing your prospects by their own names, they will automatically feel connected. It might be overwhelming to believe, but using prospects’ first names increases mail open rates by 21.2%.

8. Run Surveys

Probably nothing can work better than a short surrey campaign to boost mail open rates. This is a tried and tested method for engaging your target audience.

Make sure your survey doesn’t take up much time and is fairly straightforward. Encourage everyone to participate and offer monetary or other prizes or completion. You can provide gift vouchers, small cashbacks, etc.

Always try to mention the participation prize in the mail subject line, but do not sound salesy, as it will get caught by spam filters.

9. Provide the Option to Unsubscribe

It is crucial to provide your customers the option to opt-out of your mailing list. Although you would never want to go that way, according to laws like GDPR or CAN-SPAM act, any business mail should contain the option to unsubscribe.

We’d recommend you add an ‘Unsubscribe’ button in your mail. It will help you in removing the subscribers who don’t want to receive your mail and keep your list fresh.

It also builds trust among customers and is usually considered a good business practice.

Here are some tips for adding the unsubscribe button:

• Make it humorous
• Add either on top or bottom of the mail
• Ask why your subscribers are considering opting out
• Ask them to add a preference

10. Proofread Your Mails

You don’t want your subscribers to receive faulty mail. Besides the embarrassment, it can indicate many things–unprofessionalism, carelessness, and lack of attention.

So, before launching an email campaign, ensure your mail is error-free. Proofread the entire thing at least twice. It would be great if a third person could review it. It’s also a good idea to use online tools for this same purpose. You can use an online grammar checker to find and remove grammar/spelling-related errors in your content.

It will significantly improve deliverability rates and the chances of mail open.