7 Proven Techniques to Increase Your Email Open Rates

Interestingly email marketing remains one of the most leveraged marketing strategies around the world. Whether small, medium, enterprise-level, or startup, any business can benefit from email marketing when done right. Email marketing helps businesses capture leads, nurture them and convert them into paying customers and the story goes on.

Email marketing helps organizations stay afloat, optimize marketing campaigns, and drive website traffic. The latest findings indicate that the email marketing market will be valued at 17.9 billion by 2027. However, any marketer and business owner must understand the right way to go about it to prevent emails from ending up in spam folders.

This post explores what email open rates mean and the most reliable techniques to increase email open rates for your campaign.

Email Open Rate: What It Means

An open rate in email marketing refers to the percentage of the total times your emails are opened by subscribers. Open rate is metric and reflects the performance of your email marketing efforts. It is an indicator that shows whether your email marketing practices are working or require some modifications.

Email open rates range between 15% and 30% (average) across several industries, according to Mailchimp benchmark reports. A good open rate increases business success chances including a good return on investment. It also does this;

• Increases click-through
• Allow businesses to nurture customer relationships
• Reduces unsubscribe rates
• Reduces bounce rates

Good email open rates also increase your chances of attracting more paying customers.

But, what do you do when your email open rate is bad?

Surveys indicate that emails for churches, nonprofit organizations, entertainers, and sports corporations tend to have a higher open rate. Whereas daily deals emails, eCommerce, coupons, and offers have a low open rate.

If your email open rate is bad or in other words below average, then know that something is wrong. You must return to the drawing board to identify where the problem lies and here is what you can do about it.

7 Proven Email Marketing Techniques to Increase Open Rates

1. Segment your Email List

You may experience low email open rates in case you fail to segment your email list. Or, when you fail to sieve it. Sieving, in this case, allows you to keep your email list updated. Many times, subscribers change emails, unsubscribe, or simply go dormant. Sending the same email to all these subscribers will not yield desirable results. 

You must go through your email list on a monthly basis to keep it fresh. Eliminate inactive subscribers or those that haven’t responded to your emails in the last 7 months.

Then segment your email list. Try to understand the stage of each subscriber. Segmenting your email list allows you to send more targeted emails which increases open rates and conversions. In fact, a survey by the DMA discovered that segmented emails generate over 57% of revenue.

Segmenting emails also helps you connect with a subscriber at a personal level during the customer journey. Try to segment your email list in this way;

• Stage of the intended recipient in the customer journey
• Time spent on the email
• Time since the last purchase
• Inactive for several months

This will help you improve open rates and retain email subscribers.

2. Personalize Deeper

One of the best ways to connect meaningfully with your target audience in this digital age is by personalizing interactions. Personalization in content marketing is a powerful way to attract potential customers, nurture leads, and retain them. There are higher chances that your emails aren’t optimized properly for unique experiences if your email open rate is below the average.

Personalization allows you to tap into the power of customer data to provide a personal interaction to each email subscriber. You will be able to understand their interests and tailor experiences accordingly. That’s because modern consumers expect their brands to know their wants, needs, and preferences.

Personalizing emails can increase open rates because customers believe that you understand them. Tips;

• Use data to study customer behavior and shopping habits if you’re an eCommerce business.
• Consider real-time engagement, for example, a welcome or a thank you email 
• Offer omnichannel experiences where possible

These will help you improve engagement and increase email open rates drastically.

3. Let Your Subject Line Stand Out

Subject lines affect email open rates greatly and if not careful, your emails may always end up in spam folders. Many businesses send emails to people and what are the chances that your emails will be opened?

Become more strategic by creating strong and compelling subject lines. Good subject lines will help you break through the noise and make subscribers take the necessary action. While creating your subject lines, try to be specific, use a conversational tone, and prefer first names. These will improve engagement.

On the other hand, make your subject lines trigger curiosity. For example, subjects announcing new arrivals, free offers, and amazing discounts will surely have a good open rate. Leverage tools like ChatGPT to create outstanding subject lines. However, ensure that your emails have a human touch.

Read through your emails to have a glimpse of what your emails sound like. Otherwise, your emails may appear to be created by a robot.

4. Be Creative

Don’t send emails for the sake of sending. Emails can become a platform for establishing strong relationships and trust with your target audience. Try to optimize user experience with every email you send out. Here are some of the tips to consider;

• Keep emails short
• Use optimized images
• Use emojis, where necessary
• Follow copywriting tips

Grab attention and create compelling emails by leveraging copywriting tips. These guidelines allow email marketers to create valuable content. You can also become more creative with your emails by asking questions or making announcements. Include CTAs (calls to action) and numbers in your emails.

5. Optimize for Mobile Users

Optimizing your emails for mobile users is a reliable practice. Almost 5 billion people use mobile to access the internet globally, according to Statista. With that, optimizing your content for mobile can help you increase engagement. Optimizing emails for mobile makes them more accessible at every touchpoint. It also improves user experience.

Imagine receiving an email with a compelling subject line, only to open it and discover that you can see the image or read the text properly. Such disappointments not only affect user experience but also affect customer-business relationships.

The best ways to create mobile-friendly emails include;

• Opt for a single-column layout
• Keep the subject line within the character limit
• Compress large image files
• Avoid navigation bars
• Make good use of white space and
• Keep emails short

Overall, these tips can help you improve mobile content marketing and ensure optimal engagement. Also, A/B test every email marketing tactic you implement. A/B testing allows you to know what works for your audience and what doesn’t.

6. Send at the Right Time

The period in which you send your emails can also impact open rates significantly. If you’re fond of sending emails during any hour of the day, you may give it a second thought. Or, when you send emails on any day.

Although target audiences may differ widely, studies indicate that the best time to send emails is 9 am and 10 am. Other studies also indicate that most people open their emails around 1 pm as they tend to look for distractions during this period.

However, brands and target audiences differ greatly. Try to test and see the best time you can send your emails. Also, try to be consistent. Send enough emails because your subscribers may have missed the first one. Sending the right number of emails will help you ensure that your subscribers remain informed. 

7. Retarget Differently

Have email subscribers who seem inactive or uninterested in your offerings? Retargeted! Retargeting is a powerful digital marketing tactic and can help you revamp your email list. However, you must strategically retarget your subscribers. First, understand where the subscriber left off and then retarget.

If you never personalized emails with quality data, try to do it this time around. Analyze subscribers’ data, shopping habits, email engagement, and their responses. Showcase some sense of humor and ask why they no longer engage with your emails. Precisely, send better emails to win them back.

Additionally, set KPIs (key performance indicators) to track your email marketing efforts. It is essential to track your retargeting tactics as they will offer valuable insights about your audience. Then conduct a gap analysis to assess the results and your targets. All in all, ensure to track your email marketing efforts to understand how your audience engages with your content.

Email marketing can help you attract leads and retain customers. However, you need to adopt the best email marketing practices to break through the noise. Your email open rate can show you the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. Leverage the proven techniques detailed in this post to increase email open rates drastically.