Email marketing or sending out emails to your customers or leads is still one of the most effective form of online marketing. This is because it enables businesses to reach their existing customers, as well as their potential clients, in the place that they check alm ost everyday – their inbox.
However, there are hundreds of reasons for emails to go unread. Your clients might be busy, and their inboxes may be piled with messages. From promotional emails to company newsletters, we all know how quickly emails can pile up.
So, how exactly can you get your clients to open and read your emails? Our team at Maxeemize created a list of tips to boost your email open rates.
1. Use catchy subject lines to attract readers
This is one of the most important parts of your email. Your subject line’s job is to attract people and get them interested in what you have to offer. This has to be short, catchy and convey the subject of the email.
In order to do this effectively, you have to know who your target audience is and you have to indicate the specific benefits your email is bringing them.
You may want to consider writing subject lines that declare great deals or use lines that falls under pop culture, movie lines, song lyrics, curiosity, or humor.
2. Modify your ‘from name’
The from fields include the your “from name” and your “from email address”. These names let readers know who an email is coming from. If you do not these names carefully, you might be making it hard for your potential clients to recognize your email when it reaches their inbox.
Most people are usually suspicious of emails that come from unfamiliar senders; they will probably not open them and direct your email to their spam folder.
You should use a recognizable from email address and from name that embodies your business. We suggest creating an email address with your company’s name in it, rather than a personal account.
3. Learn about your audience
Learning about your email audience is vital to getting the email marketing campaign results that you desire. Knowing more about your people on your list can help you create more relevant content.
Figure out why your customers joined your email list, ask what kind of topics they are really interested in, and understand the kind of questions they are asking and figure out a better way to help address their questions.
Here are a few techniques that can help you learn more about your audience:
- Online surveys – send a survey with a few questions to find out what topics they want to learn more about
- Click reports – these can help you determine which links are getting the most amount of clicks. Click reports can also give you you an analysis of who is clicking to read your content.
- Poll – you can ask the people on your email list to take a brief poll.
- Personal Interactions – write down questions and feedbacks from your daily in-person customer interactions and refer back to your notes when you run out of email ideas.There are specific times of days when people are more likely to open and read emails.
4. Figure out the best time to send emails
One of the simplest ways to figure out the best time to send an email is to divide your list into two or three equally sized groups and send the same email copy in three different times of the day. Try this method for a few mailings and take a note of which version receives the highest open rate.
This process may take about a few weeks to complete, but it should give you a much better idea of when your readers are most likely to open your email.
5. Revise you online sign-up procedure
It is your duty to make sure that the people on your email list understand what they signed up for. You are also responsible for following through with the expectations that you have set.
When you are creating or revising your sign-up form, make sure that you are answering these questions:
- What is the value of joining the list?
- What should they expect to get?
- How often are they going to receive emails?
You should also consider taking a look at the methods that you use to add people on your list. Asking for permission before adding a new contact and getting people to join the list voluntarily can help you get better response rates and less spam complaints.
Lastly, there are several email marketing tools and services available you can choose from, most of which cater to the design, distribution, tracking and analysis of email campaigns. Here’s a list to help you choose the right one that will do the job for all small to medium size businesses:
At Maxeemize, we ensure that your email marketing investments are maximized for better ROI. We have the expertise, knowledge, experience, as well as creativity, to deliver customized email marketing solutions that produce results for your business! Contact us for a free email marketing consultation.
