Relationships are built and strengthened through constant communication. Just like intimate relationships, your relationship with your customers needs to be nurtured constantly. To do that without bothering them with weekly calls, you will need to up your email marketing game. Some people don’t have the time to open their inboxes but once you’ve given them a reason to do so, they will keep coming back. Read further if you want to know the ways to significantly improve your email click-through rate.
Email Open Rate Tips:
1. It All Starts with the Name
When you receive an email, what do you usually check first? That’s right, your eyes always go straight to the sender’s name. Whether it’s coming from a company or a person, an email should always show the name of the sender. Hubspot discovered that emails sent from a person’s name have a higher email clickthrough rate compared to emails sent from a company name. Some email clients may also cut off a few characters from your sender’s name. Make sure to use a short sender name so your recipient will know whom it came from.
2. Teach Your Subscribers How to WhiteList
Some email clients have very sophisticated spam filters. There are a ton of email marketing strategies to increase open rates but how can these work if your subscribers won’t even receive your emails? This is why you need to teach them how to whitelist your email address. Most subscribers won’t know how to whitelist so be sure to provide them instructions either on your opt-in thank you page or include them in your opt-in confirmation email.
3. Update Your Email List
Having a long email list does not always guarantee a high open or click rate. Over time, some of your subscribers may have lost access to or changed email addresses. Increase open rate email marketing just by cleaning your list. Schedule a periodic check for inactive subscribers and remove them from your list. An inactive subscriber can be anyone who has not opened any of your emails for at least 6 months.
4. Segment Your Email List
Not all customers think alike so not all customers want to purchase the same products or avail of the same services. You don’t want your customers to ignore your emails or unsubscribe because of preference reasons. List segmentation comes in handy so you can provide offers to individuals who are actually interested in them.
5. Optimize Your Emails for Mobile View
StoneTemple compared the percentage of mobile usage between the years 2016 and 2017. The % of visits from mobile devices grew from 57% to 63% while the % of time spent grew from 40% to 49%. Think about how many people you’re not reaching because your email is not mobile-friendly.
Here are tips on how to improve email open rate through mobile:
- Keep the formatting simple and under 600px wide.
- Larger fonts will be easier to read on mobile
- Use a larger call-to-action button so your recipient can easily click on it
6. Your Subject Line May Be Too Long
Subject line length varies by email client so if your subject line is too long, your recipient may not see an email preview and treat it as spam. Prevent this from happening by keeping your subject at 50 characters or fewer.
7. Test Your Subject Lines
Not all subject lines are created equal. Some subject lines resonate right away while others just don’t sound right. To improve your email open rate, discover what works best with your audience by doing an A/B test. An A/B subject test is done as an initial email to a small percentage of your subscribers. It usually involves 2 subject lines and 2 sets of audiences with the same number of subscribers. For example, subject A may only include 3 to 4 words while subject B includes 5 to 6 words. Send subject A to audience A and subject B to audience B. The subject that has more opens and email clicks are sent to the rest of the list or segment.
8. Be Friendly
An email can be canned or personalized depending on the purpose it serves. Communication builds a relationship and if you want your subscribers to trust you, you may want to be friendly with them first. Begin your email with a
“Hi” or
“Hello” and write it how you would write a friend, conversational and with some humor.
9. Include Social Sharing Options and Buttons for Links
As mentioned earlier, a higher percentage of people check their emails through mobile. Using a button instead of links helps your subscriber easily tap on the offer which then aids in increasing the click-through rate in your newsletter. Because most people are now mobile users, there’s a big chance they are also into social media. Always include an option to share your products, services, and most especially, your promotions on social media sites. This is an inexpensive way to reach non-customers and remind existing ones to check their emails.
10. Create a Sense of Urgency
Motivate your subscribers by providing a deadline for an offer or using a call-to-action phrase. Having a deadline or cut-off will encourage your subscribers to click the button and take advantage of the promotion right after they opened your email.
11. Include a Post Scriptum (P.S.)
A P.S. will boost your marketing email click-through rate by simply reminding your subscribers to check out the offer. This simple reminder will also catch the attention of subscribers who tend to scan emails. Email marketing can be a big load especially if you’re a solo entrepreneur.
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