11 Best Tips to Improve Open Rate on Your Mailing List

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Relationships are built and strengthened through constant communication.

Just like intimate relationships, your relationship with your customers needs to be watered consistently. To do that without bothering them with weekly calls, you will need to up your email marketing game.

Some people don’t have the time to open their inboxes but once you’ve given them a reason to do so, they will keep coming back. Read further if you want to know the ways to significantly improve your email click-through rate.

1. It All Starts with the Name

email starts with name

When you receive an email, what do you usually check first? That’s right, your eyes always go straight to the sender’s name. Whether it’s coming from a company or person, an email should always show the name of the sender. Hubspot discovered that emails sent from a person’s name have a higher email clickthrough rate compared to emails sent from a company name.

Some email clients may also cut off a few characters from your sender name. Make sure to use a short sender name so your recipient will know whom it came from.

2. Teach Your Subscribers How to WhiteList

Some email clients have very sophisticated spam filters. There are a ton of email marketing strategies to increase open rates but how can these work if your subscribers won’t even receive your emails. This is why you need to teach them how to whitelist your email address.

Most subscribers won’t know how to whitelist so be sure to provide them instructions either on your opt-in thank you page or include them in your opt-in confirmation email.

3. Update Your Email List

Update Your Email List

Image from: randomlists.com

Having a long email list does not always guarantee a high open or click rate. Over time, some of your subscribers may have lost access to or changed email addresses.

Increase open rate email marketing just by cleaning your list. Schedule a periodic check for inactive subscribers and remove them from your list. An inactive subscriber can be anyone who has not opened any of your emails for at least 6 months.

4. Segment Your Email List

Segment Your Email List

Not all customers think alike so not all customers want to purchase the same products or avail the same services. You don’t want your customers to ignore your emails or unsubscribe because of preference reasons. List segmentation comes in handy so you can provide offers to individuals who are actually interested in them.

5. Optimize Your Emails for Mobile View

5. Optimize Your Emails for Mobile View

StoneTemple compared the percentage of mobile usage between years 2016 and 2017. The % of visits from mobile devices grew from 57% to 63% while the % of time spent grew from 40% to 49%. Think about how many people you’re not reaching because your email is not mobile-friendly.

Here are tips on how to get more clicks on email through mobile:

  • Keep the formatting simple and under 600px wide.
  • Larger fonts will be easier to read on mobile
  • Use a larger call-to-action button so your recipient can easily click on it

6. Your Subject Line May Be Too Long

Subject line length varies by email client so if your subject line is too long, your recipient may not see an email preview and treat it as spam. Prevent this from happening by keeping your subject at 50 characters or fewer.

7. Test Your Subject Lines

Not all subject lines are created equal. Some subject lines resonate right away while others just don’t sound right. Discover what works best with your audience by doing an A/B test.

An A/B subject test is done as an initial email to a small percentage of your subscribers. It usually involves 2 subject lines and 2 sets of audiences with the same number of subscribers. For example, subject A may only include 3 to 4 words while subject B includes 5 to 6 words. Send subject A to audience A and subject B to audience B. The subject that has more opens and email clicks is sent to the rest of the list or segment.

8. Be Friendly

be friendly

An email can be canned or personalized depending on the purpose it serves. Communication builds a relationship and if you want your subscribers to trust you, you may want to be friendly with them first.

Begin your email with a “Hi” or “Hello” and write it how you would write a friend, conversational and with some humor.

9. Include Social Sharing Options and Buttons for Links

Include Social Sharing Options and Buttons for Links

As mentioned earlier, a higher percentage of people check their emails through mobile. Using a button instead of links helps your subscriber easily tap on the offer which then aids in increasing click through rate in your newsletter.

Because most people are now mobile users, there’s a big chance they are also into social media. Always include an option to share your products, services and most especially, your promotions to social media sites. This is an inexpensive way to reach non-customers and remind existing ones to check their emails.

10. Create a Sense of Urgency

Motivate your subscribers by providing a deadline to an offer or using a call-to-action phrase. Having a deadline or cut off will encourage your subscribers to click the button and take advantage of the promotion right after they opened your email.

11. Include a Post Scriptum (P.S.)

A P.S. will boost your marketing email click-through rate by simply reminding your subscribers to check out the offer. This simple reminder will also catch the attention of subscribers who tend to scan emails.

Email marketing can be a big load especially if you’re a solo entrepreneur. Don’t let your business run you. Free up your time and outsource from a virtual staff finder agency that has trained and experienced virtual assistants.

Hire an Email Marketer and let an expert carry out your marketing strategies for you. Your customers surely won’t miss out on any news and promotions while you get to do the things you love.

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We would love to hear if these tips worked for you! If you have questions or any Email Marketing related success stories, please leave a comment below.

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