Is your email marketing campaign struggling to get off the ground? Maybe you’ve spent a lot of time crafting beautiful emails with enticing copy and images, but more often than not, your subscribers are hitting delete without even opening the message. Let’s take a look at four ways to increase your open rates and maximize the effectiveness of your campaign.
Subject Line
The subject line is your first point of contact with subscribers. Blow it, and you’ll never get the results you’re looking for.
- Simplify It—Creativity is great, but getting too flowery with your subject line can make you look suspicious. Stick to the essentials: email topic, special offer, or product name.
- Personalize It—Write your subject line in terms of the way it will benefit the subscriber. Use action words such as save, enter, or win. Speak to the reader rather than at him.
- Test It—Set up an A/B test to determine which subject line produces the best results. Use test results not only to determine the actual wording for a certain campaign, but to influence the style you use for future emails.
Send Time
The time of day you send your email can greatly affect your open rates. However, the best time of day for you will depend on who makes up your primary target audience.
- Optimize It—If you send primarily to business people, for instance, avoid sending first thing in the morning or right before 5:00. Both of these times are likely to lower your open rates.
- Test It—Try sending emails at different times to find out what time of day generates the most opens among your target audience.
Send Day
- Accommodate It—The day you send will be influenced by the type of special offer you’re promoting (a weekend sale announcement might be sent on Thursday, for example). Mondays and Fridays tend to generate lower open rates than other days.
- Test It—Experiment with different days of the week to find out when your subscribers are most likely to open and read your messages.
Subscriber List
- Segment It—Acknowledge and cater to the differences in your subscribers, especially if your list is very large. Use profile information or customer surveys to develop customized special offers based on your subscribers’ interests.
- Test It—Once again, the best way to know what works for any group of people is to test. Set up a series of tests to determine what kinds of emails appeal most to the various groups in your subscriber list.
Did you notice a pattern in the tips above? eConnect Email can help you design and run tests for your email campaign, displaying detailed reports to help you make the best possible decisions.