4 proven techniques to sky-rocket your email open rate
Email open rates vary greatly for many different reasons, but most important the open rate is most impacted when the recipient of your email believes there is VALUE in the message you have sent. That ‘value’ is represented in four ways:
- Your From (sender) name.
- Your email address.
- The subject line.
- The pre-header content.
- Your From (sender) name.
Think about your own habits when reviewing your inbox. If you see a sender name you don’t recognize, you might consign it to your spam folder immediately. At the very least you’re going to be extremely cautious if you do decide to open it.
This is why sending an email from your actual name to your contacts is definitely the best approach. Don’t send it from “Sales” or “Marketing” or a name that’s unfamiliar to your recipients. Send it from the name they are most familiar with…yours!
- Your email address
If your email address is saved in your recipients contact folder, there should be no reason your email should be rejected by their inbox. However, if it isn’t in their contacts, it’s quite possibly heading for the round file. So send your contacts emails from the email address they’re most familiar with…your email address. Not info@ sales@ membership@.
- The subject line.
When it comes to email, the content in the subject line is where creativity is at its most important. In fact, it might be the deciding factor in terms of your email recipient determining just how much value is included in the email they are considering opening.
There are various takes on how to write a winning subject line. In my long career using email as a marketing tactic, here’s mine:
a) Look at your email and see what value it is bringing to your email recipients – think THEM not you. Pick out the most valuable words or stream of words that indicate that value.
b) When concocting the subject line, think in terms of how you would react to a newspaper headline and you’re on the right track. Look at your online news provider and see how they do it.
c) Keep the subject relatively short (~seven or so words) but ensure it is highly engaging. You might even pose a question, or pose a “how to”. Write a few subject lines and choose the best…you can be controversial, but above all, be ENGAGING.
d) Use powerful, colorful, impactful language. They catch the reader’s attention and inspire an emotional connection. Words like:
“Sky-rocket”
“Under wraps”
“Never seen before”
“Rock-solid”
“Recession-proof”
“Booked-solid”
“Goosebumps”
“Hypnotic”
“Staggering”
“Awe-inspiring”
- The pre-header content
A pre-header is like a sub-title. It provides a short summary that follows the subject line. It’s a ‘tip-off’ to what the message contains. Here’s what it looks like in Gmail:
Most email clients let you see the subject line followed by the pre-header. There’s only so much room left after the space the subject line takes up, so when you’re figuring out how long the pre-header can be, bear in mind how long the subject line is. The longer the subject the shorter the pre-header.
The pre-header can mean the difference between someone opening your email and archiving it—so you generally want it to be something meaningful. As for suggestions on how to compose a good pre-header. Look at how sub-titles are used in book titles and you’ll get the gist.
