Five Easy Tips to Improve Your Email Open Rates

Over the years, email marketing has allowed businesses to expand their reach at a fraction of the cost of other various marketing strategies used by different brands today. Its ability to target specific audiences and make the most of customer interest generated from different sources is one of the primary reasons why it has been known to improve conversion rates for many brands and businesses.

Many brands and business however, often underestimate how powerful email marketing can be when used strategically in bringing in more traffic and ultimately leading to more conversion. But sending just any regular email to your customer mailing list will just not cut it.

Companies need to be able to track how effective their email marketing strategy is by taking note of their email open rate so as to stay more relevant to their subscribers.

How to Improve Your Email Open Rates

Here are five tricks to improve your email open rates.

Create a Killer Subject Line

No form of email marketing will ever be effective if people do not even read them so email subject lines play a vital part in the success of your marketing strategy.

To make sure your emails stand out from the thousands of emails that your audience will likely get every single day, it is important to draft creative subject lines for your emails. These should be catchy and able to draw curiosity so that your audience is drawn to open your email rather than skip it.

A great subject line is one that hooks your audience at first glance but remains clear and concise. Nothing turns your audience off quicker than a catchy subject line that does not match your message once it is opened and read.

Your subject line should also be free from spelling and grammar mistakes so as not to impact your brand’s credibility. But most importantly, it has to be able to offer value to your potential customers as well so as to make the time they spend reading through your message meaningful in some way.

Write Valuable Content

Writing quality content for every single email ensures your audience will enjoy your emails when they come too. As a result, it may also help ensure your subsequent emails will be opened and read in the future.

You content must offer value to your subscribers, give them insight into new things, add inspiration and promote learning. Every email is important. When one subscriber appreciates one email from your brand, they are more likely to keep reading other emails when they come.

Remember, your customers can just as easily unsubscribe from your mailing list if they feel your content is the same spammy stuff they keep getting from other dubious sources. The goal is to consistently write high quality and engaging content which leads to more loyal subscribers who can increase your email open rates.

Segment Your Mailing List

With so many emails coming in to people’s inboxes every day, many recipients on your mailing list are sure to be selective about the emails they open. No one has the time to go through every single email in their inbox.

To increase the chances of having your emails read by your subscribers, it is essential to segment your mailing list. This means dividing your audience into specific groups based on common interests and other similarities.

This makes it easier for you to create a message that is relevant to a specific group — which increases your chances of success over sending a singular message to all your subscribers.

With segments, it is easier for you to market to a particular audience based on shared characteristics, improving conversion in the long run.

To start segmenting your mailing list, it is important to identify the top three to four profiles in your audience based on who they are, what they do, how they want to be contacted and what they are interested in. Doing this allows you to tailor your message to each of these profiles.

Avoid Spam Filters

With so many emails coming through people’s inboxes every minute, spam filters have emerged to help people sort through messages that they actually need versus those that just need to be ignored.

You don’t want your emails to be flagged as spam so your email needs to be able to avoid spam filters. To do so, avoid such things as misleading subject headings and sales terms on your email. You’ll also want to choose a good IP address and always send from a trusted domain.

It is also important to ensure your subscribers have opted to receive your emails to avoid ending up in the Spam folder.

Optimize Your Messages for Mobile Devices

Nowadays, many users check their email on the go and are more likely to check their email using their smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. This only proves how important it is to optimize your email content for accessibility and readability on mobile devices.

To accomplish this, only use mobile-friendly formatting for your email content while keeping in mind that smartphones have smaller screens so subject lines may be aggregated. It is important to keep your message short, simple and concise.  Avoid using large fonts, use smaller images and highlight call to action buttons on your emails to make it easier for your audience to tap on them which targets conversion.

These are only some of the ways to ensure you make the most of your email marketing campaign and get all your messages read by your subscribers. More than anything, the key to a better email open rate lies in knowing your audience better, understanding their needs and what captures their interest while ensuring your content remains highly valuable and relevant to them.

With an effective email marketing campaign, brands and businesses can gain better visibility and conversion without needing too many resources or investment.

By taking into account these tips and tricks, it may be possible for your brand to bring in all the customers it needs through something as simple as an effective email marketing campaign.

Open Email Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "Five Easy Tips to Improve Your Email Open Rates" was first published on Small Business Trends