How do you get people to open your emails? Most of us are familiar with the idea of the eight-second attention span. A study from Microsoft showed that people tend to lose interest in as little as eight seconds, which is more quickly than a goldfish. So, what tools do marketers have to encourage readers to keep reading - to be engaged with the email they send?
Understanding Email Open Rate
The email open rate refers to the percentage of recipients who have successfully received and opened your email. This is vital in evaluating your email marketing success. On average, the email open rate across different industries stands at slightly above 19%.
Various factors, like the nature of your industry or the timing of your email, can influence this statistic. Furthermore, due to enhanced privacy features in recent Apple iOS updates, tracking your email marketing open rates can be a tad challenging. However, you can still take decisive steps to increase open, read, and conversion rates in your email marketing campaign.
Establish Trust Through Your Sender's Name
The sender's name significantly influences whether or not a recipient will open your email. A study from Litmus shows that 42% of people say they will look at the sender's email address first when deciding whether or not to open an email.
People are naturally wary of unfamiliar senders, so it's crucial to ensure your sender's name is recognizable and trustworthy. Ideally, it should reflect your company's name or a well-known representative. Additionally, domain authentication can further enhance your credibility. It involves verifying your email domain with your email service provider to prevent potential phishing or spoofing attempts, thus increasing your recipients' confidence in your emails.
Captivate With Your Subject Line
Your email subject line is essentially the 'headline' of your email. Its role is to pique the interest of your recipients and encourage them to open your email. Effective subject lines are concise, relevant, and intriguing. Incorporating personalization in your subject lines, such as using the recipient's name or referencing a previous interaction, can further improve open rates. It's also a good idea to regularly incorporate split testing and refine your subject lines based on the number of conversions and open rate from your audience.
Timing is Everything
The timing of your emails plays a significant role in their open rates. While general advice may suggest sending emails at specific times, it's crucial to understand that the optimal timing varies depending on your audience.
Some people might check their emails first thing in the morning, while others might do so in the evening after work. Likewise, the best day to send emails might vary depending on the nature of your business and the habits of your audience. Monitor your email performance metrics to identify trends and optimize your send times accordingly.
Align Your Email Content with Your Audience's Interests
Ensuring that your email content aligns with the expectations of your audience is essential for maintaining their interest and improving open rates. If a recipient subscribes for gardening tips, for example, they are likely to disengage if they start receiving emails about unrelated topics.
Segmenting your email list can be a useful strategy here. This involves categorizing your subscribers based on factors such as their interests, purchase history, or engagement level and sending them content that is most relevant to their category. Monitoring unsubscribe rates is one way to know if your content continues to hit the mark.
Enhance Your Opt-In Strategy
Your opt-in strategy is the process through which people subscribe to your emails. It's important to ensure that this process is easy and enticing for potential subscribers. One way to enhance your opt-in strategy is by offering something of value in return for the subscription, such as a free guide, a discount, or exclusive access to content. Once someone has opted in, it's important to provide them with consistent and valuable content to keep them engaged and maintain a high-quality email list.
By diving deeper into these strategies and tailoring them to suit your specific business and audience, you can significantly boost the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
About Altered State Production
Altered State Productions delivers a blend of expertise and innovation in crafting targeted email marketing campaigns that captivate and engage. With a decade of experience, Altered State is adept at driving performance through personalized, data-enriched email strategies. Connect with your audience, achieve measurable results, and scale your business with an email marketing campaign tailored to your unique business.
