You’ve taken the time to craft a well-written email, you’ve even spent the time to make sure that your email looks good, but all of your hard work can be for naught if your open rate is low. For every thousand emails sent, only 10% will be opened if you’re lucky.
This means that if you send out one thousand emails, only 100 people will see the message.
So what are some of the most common reasons for an email not being opened? Here are ten tips to help you improve your email open rate and ensure that your message gets delivered.
1. Regularly Clean Your Lists
One of the biggest reasons that people don’t read your email is because they are tired of receiving messages from you. This is why it is important to regularly clean your list and remove any inactive members. A common mistake people make with their outreach lists is to think about quantity over quality. The fact is, if you send an email to a list and nobody on that list clicks on the links or opens the message, then what was the point of sending it in the first place?
Before sending out an email blast, remove anyone who hasn’t opened your emails for six months or more. This will ensure that you aren’t wasting time on those that will never be interested in what you have to say.
2. Segment Your Lists Into Areas Of Interest
You can segment your list into areas of interest by including a link to a newsletter sign-up form, a blog, or a free trial offer. This way, you can target different types of people with different messages. For example, if you wanted to send an email about your new products and services to two separate lists, you could pair one list with the new product mailing and the other mailing with the free trial offer.
3. Do Your Research
Before you send your email, do your research. Find out who your target audience is and what their interests are. This can be done by looking at social media profiles, reading blogs, and doing surveys. Once you find out who your target audience is and what their interests are, you can craft a more tailored message that will appeal to them more.
4. Speak Directly To Your Audience Segment
One of the most common reasons why an email is not opened is because it is not relevant to the audience. If you are sending out a newsletter that does not apply to your audience, then they are less likely to open it.
For example, if you are sending out a monthly newsletter about your company’s products and services, but your company sells electronics and the recipient only buys clothing, they may not be interested in opening this email. You can use marketing automation to segment your list so that people who purchase clothing will only receive emails about clothing related items.
Not personalising emails
Customers like feeling like their opinion matters – for this reason alone, making sure that you personalize all emails you send can help boost open rates. This doesn’t mean changing the content; instead edit subject lines and senders’ names to show that you know them on a more personal level. Personalized emails get opened 11% more often than non-personalized ones!
Lack of urgency
Creating a sense of urgency with customers can also increase email opens. You can do this by giving discounts or free shipping for limited time only or by telling customers they need to act now before supplies run out. Plenty more ideas exist – try testing different time frames or offers to see what works best for your business!
Excessive promotional language
If there’s one thing people don’t want in their inbox, it’s another advertisement. Make sure that your email contains valuable information for readers rather than just
5. Make It Easy To Read
One of the most common reasons people don’t open emails is because it takes too much effort to read them. You can avoid this by making sure that your email is short and easy to read. Long paragraphs and sentences that go on for several lines make it difficult for readers to focus and skim through your message.
The best way to make your email easier to read is by using bullet points, short sentences, and breaking up long paragraphs. Breaking up your email will also help you keep the reader’s attention, which will in turn increase your open rate. Let’s talk copywriting.
Another way to make it easy for your reader to scan through your email is by using plenty of white space between each paragraph. Most people feel overwhelmed when they come across a large block of text that doesn’t have any white space between the paragraphs.
It’s an understandable reaction; we’re used to reading books with tons of white space in between the pages and columns in order to give us a break from all the words on a page at once. This same concept applies when we’re scanning through an email inbox; we want some white space so we can stop every few lines rather than trying to scroll down one long page with no breaks in between.
To add even more white spaces, use numbered lists instead of bulleted lists—why not? Numbers are easier for humans to digest than bullets because they come naturally in sequence without having to count each time you see one. And lastly, don’t forget about headings!
6. Include A Clear Call-To-Action
One of the simplest things you can do to improve your email open rate is to include a clear call-to-action. A call-to-action might be an offer, a date and time, or a link to another email. You may want to add in a strong call-to-action if you’re trying to get someone to book with you for an appointment. This way they know when and how they can reach you. Check our Shopify’s article about lead magnets for more subscribers.
7. Send At The Right Time
The most common mistake is sending an email at the wrong time. One study found that emails sent between 3 and 5pm on Tuesday had higher open rates than any other day of the week. So what does that mean for you? If your customer base is in North America, then send your emails after 3pm on a Tuesday. If you have a global customer base, then send your emails on a Friday evening.
8. Resend Your Email To Unopens
If you’ve sent an email and it’s been a while, then you might want to check if that recipient opened it. If they haven’t opened the email by clicking on the link, then it could be because they either moved to a different email address or deleted your contact from their list of contacts.
In this case, you can resend your email to them by going to “Contact” > “Recipients” > “All Contacts”. You should also double-check your contact management system for any discrepancies. Sometimes people might have moved to a different business but kept the same email address. This is another great way to improve your email open rate.
9. Make Your Subject Line Pop
The most important step in making your email effective is the subject line. The subject line should be eye-catching and concise, and it should also give a sense of what the email is about. But make sure you’re not being too cryptic or misleading with the subject line. If you’re going to use a pun or a joke in your subject line, make sure it’s clear what the joke is.
10. Avoid Spam Filters
One of the most common reasons for an email being labeled as spam is because it contains words that are considered to be spammy. Unsubscribe links, promotional text, and offers are all potential red flags for email filters. What does this mean for you?
Well, much like how websites with pop-ups that demand visitors fill out lengthy forms or surveys are often blocked by browsers, your emails will also be blocked by these filters if they contain spammy language.
Before sending out an email blast, remove anyone who hasn’t opened your emails for six months or more. This will ensure that you aren’t wasting time on those that will never be interested in what you have to say.
Let’s talk about how to improve your email open rate.