Despite being regarded as a drab and unimaginative form of online marketing, email marketing remains one of the most important channels of communication with customers and is an effective way of boosting sales. Although many of us instantly breeze through mail from companies, the click-through rate of those that do read these emails is remarkably high. There are enough of the latter for most companies to judge email marketing worth pursuing.
Additionally, new software and tools were released in 2015 that allowed marketing departments to be both more creative with their newsletters, and enabled them to analyze the reception to these emails more thoroughly. SumoMe, for example, can be incorporated into sites with a decent amount of webspace, such as those hosted by www.1and1.com.
This offers webmasters a variety of tricks and gadgets to crank up the tempo on an email marketing campaign.
Here then, for those that are prepared to give email marketing another chance, are three tips to help increase your email open rate:
1. Long Subject Lines are Attractive
A report from Get Response found that emails which had subject lines containing over 61 characters, actually had a higher open rate than those with less than 61 characters.
Of course, this provokes the question: how long is too long? Well, by using A/B/C tester emails you will be able to send newsletters out with subject lines of varying length, say 60, 100, and 140. Subsequently you will be able to view the open rate of each to see which was the most successful.
2. Keep them keen … but don’t cry wolf
However long your subject line is, it is important to generate curiosity. You want to give a taste of the goodies that your email contains. For example: ‘Try the Top Tool for Generating Great Content in 2016.’ For the subscriber to find out what this tool is, they have to open your email. Now, the important thing here is to ensure that you can provide the goods when the email is opened.
Click-bait has had its day, and brands are getting punished severely for using misleading titles to lure people in, only for them to be greeted with flat and uninspiring content. BuzzFeed are an example of a brand that provokes curiosity well, without being disingenuous. The Independent newspaper on Twitter, is an example of a brand getting it very wrong. If you cry wolf superfluously, no one will come when there really is something to shout about.
3. Don’t just think ‘How Many?’, but also ‘When?’
Many people say that the key with email marketing is to not send too many emails, just sporadically send a few really good ones. This is true to an extent, you do not want to irritate your recipients, and you do want to ensure each email contains worthwhile content.
However, there are times when it is worth upping the ante. It’s more common that recipients are most likely to open newsletters in the first week after subscribing. Make use of this, by sending a handful of top quality posts their way. It will also help them remember who you are.