How To Increase Email Open Rate Complete Guide 2021

Growing your subscriber list is one of your main ongoing goals as an email marketer.

Having a large number of followers, however, does not guarantee success. Your marketing efforts will be ineffective if no one opens your emails.

That is why it is also critical to concentrate on increasing your email open rate.

This article covers the following topics:

• 1. What Is an Email Open Rate?
• 2. What Is the Average Open Rate for Email Marketing?
• 3. Ways To Increase Email Open Rate
• 4. Research Your Audience
• 5. Use Email Subject Lines with High Open Rates
• 6. Track Performance of Emails
• 7. Keep Emails Short and Sweet
• 8. Make Your Emails Mobile-Friendly

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1. What is an Email Open Rate?

Let’s begin by defining some terms: An email open rate is simply the percentage of your subscribers who opened a message. Your campaigns will be more effective if your followers read and engage with your content.

High open rates inevitably lead to higher click-through rates and conversions for your company, so knowing how to increase the open rate of emails is critical to improving the overall effectiveness of your email marketing campaign.

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2. What is the Average Open Rate for Email Marketing?

So, what should email marketers aim for in terms of open rate?

Though its precise answer varies by sector, the average across several key sectors is 20.81 percent.

You might want to look into average open rates in your industry to get a better idea of what you should strive for.

If your email open rate is significantly lower than average, you should definitely think about it – but that doesn’t mean you have to settle for “good enough.”

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3. Ways To Increase Email Open Rate

A low, or non-existent open rate is one of the most common shortcomings in most email marketing campaigns. If you run into this problem, don’t worry, there are easy ways to increase your open rates and get more subscribers to engage with your emails.

Below, I’m going to go over some ways to improve your email campaigns open rate to get more subscribers reading your emails.

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4. Research Your Audience

You’ve conducted an email research, gathered recipients’ email addresses, and ready now to begin crafting your email sequences.

To understand how to increase the email open rate, you must first know whom you are emailing.

How do you know what makes your recipient tick if you don’t know anything about them?

Personalization and a human touch creates trust, which is essential for increasing the open rate.

Nowadays, social media makes it extremely simple to learn about your recipients. Aside from their job title, you can learn about what are their interests.

Most people use LinkedIn to research recipients because it is easy to find email addresses as well as a wealth of company/work information.

Based on this information, it is possible to personalize emails and add a human touch.

Because online interactions are becoming so common, it is critical to give them a human touch.

Nobody wants to feel like they’re having conversations with a robot. The more personalized your email, the more likely you will receive a response.

The use of personal pronouns such as “I”, “you” , and “we” are all ways to add a human touch to your email. Also, signing off your emails with a first name is another great way to personalize emails in order to gain trust with your recipients.

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5. Use Email Subject Lines with High Open Rates

Because the average office worker receives 121 emails per day, not all of them are read.

You want to create email subject lines that are effective. You’re already aware that subject lines stand out in crowded inboxes. And you know that standing out is the only way to get traffic, conversions, and, eventually, sales.

The good news is that you don’t have to be a renowned copywriter to write open rate subject lines. For starters, you need to have two key elements in your subject lines and emails i.e., Personalization and Value Proposition. Most of your target audiences are basically self-centered. In other words, people are more concerned about what you can do for them. All they care about is how their problem could be solved. Specifically, here are the sales email subject lines that get opened:

Introspective Subject Line

An example of an introspective subject line is when you ask your recipients questions that will make them imagine and visualize things, your email will get noticed. For instance, Melyssa Griffin asks her target audiences this type of questions:

The Right Use of “If-then”

Our brain is programmed to react to logical statements. As a result, “if-then” statements act as brain stimuli and influence social reinforcement. Sumo uses this as their marketing strategy on their emails to get them opened. For instance:

Keeping It Personal

When you address a person or a company directly, they stop and pay attention. If an email appears in your inbox that appears to be customized specifically to you, you are more likely to open and read it. That is the power of personalization. Lady Startup’s emails are a good example:

Made this video for Sania

Cut to the Chase

This one-of-a-kind subject line is exciting, intriguing, and precise all at the same time. When a recipient sees this subject line, they know they’re in for a treat. According to studies, the majority of people find uncertainty unsettling. In other words, you must be specific about your ideas or advice.

“I can help”

When writing sales emails, make sure the subject line addresses the recipients’ pain points. What issues can you help your recipient with? It’s all about giving to the recipient and not expecting anything in return except their permission to do so. As an example, consider the following:

Can i call you tomorrow?

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6. Track Performance of Email Campaigns

It is also critical to track your performance, as with all email marketing. Paying attention to key email marketing metrics allows you to better understand which tactics will help you achieve your objectives and increase your email open rates.

For instance, you may soon realize that sending emails at a specific time of day increases the likelihood that your subscribers will open them.

A simple way to increase your email open rate is to schedule your campaign accordingly.

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7. Keep Emails Short and Sweet

Marketo’s Mike Madden examined hundreds of thousands of emails and discovered that short emails perform slightly better. Seven-word headlines were the most effective.

The average seven-word headline in his dataset had 41 characters, but who’s counting?

Nothing is more annoying than opening an email only to discover that it is a page and a half long. Nobody has time these days to go through long paragraphs of text.

As a result, it’s best to say what you want in as few lines as possible. Aim for no more than 50-125 words. If you absolutely must write more, make it extremely important.

Otherwise, your recipients will mentally label you as “chatty” and disregard your emails. When writing your email, go over it several times to ensure that every word serves a purpose. Be ruthless in removing all unnecessary words. This way, you’ll stay on track.

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8. Make Your Emails Mobile Friendly

The majority of people nowadays check their emails on their phones. As a result, if your emails aren’t mobile-friendly, forget about increasing open/engagement rates. If you use images or banners, send test emails and check them on mobile.

This way, you’ll know how your emails will appear on mobile devices. It only takes a few minutes, but taking the test will save you a lot of embarrassment later.

A responsive email like A Weber’s adjusts to the resolution of your mobile screen automatically. This improves the layout and makes the content look better.

The bottom line

Knowing how to improve email marketing’s open rate is not a difficult task. However, you must pay attention to minor details because they can make a significant difference.

Even though the ways that have been shared above seem obvious, you’d be surprised how many people still struggle to write good emails. We hope you will remember these suggestions for your next email.

If you have any suggestions or tactics for increasing email open rates, please share them.