Easy Solutions to Help Boost Your Email Open Rates

• Written by Michael Bass

If you use email marketing, then you understand the importance of email open rates. Only a portion of the people that you send emails to will actually open the email.

This is why you need to grab their attention with the subject line. Unfortunately, creating an effective subject line isn’t always easy. People get a lot of emails and don’t have time to read everything that comes through their inbox.

You don’t need to rethink your entire email marketing strategy. With a little bit of tweaking, you can learn how to improve your email open rates.

Your Subject Line Needs to Be Short

Your subject line should contain no more than 8 words. If the subject line is too long, it’ll take too long to read, which will result in lower email open rates.

Keeping the subject line short also forces you to strip away unnecessary words. You’re forced to create a clear, direct message with your subject line.

Leave the Recipient Wanting More 

While you should be direct with your subject line, you also don’t want to give everything away. The email recipient should want to read more. Leave a little bit of mystery to the subject.

For example, you might state, “Your best online marketing tips are ready.”

With this subject line, the reader knows that the email will contain marketing tips or a link to tips. But, they don’t know much else. This is easy to do. Typically, you just need to cut your headline in half.

A full headline might’ve read, “Discover the best online marketing tips for increasing conversion rates.”

By removing the last half of the headline, and personalizing the beginning, you’re left with a short, effective subject line.

Use Alliteration in Your Subject Lines

Alliteration is the repeated occurrence of the same letter. It makes headlines, titles, and subject lines stand out. They’re more fun to read and more likely to result in an opened email.

Using the previous example, “More marketing tips to help you make money.”

The repetition of the same letter draws your eye to the subject line. When you’re scrolling through multiple emails in your inbox, this small difference can have a big impact on whether or not you open an email.

Use Second-Person Narrative

You should craft your subject lines using second-person narrative. The words that you’re reading right now are written in the second person. This is the use of “you” and “your” in your subject line and copy.

Second-person narrative is a little more personable than third-person, where there is no pronoun. Look at the following two examples:

• Your best online marketing tips are ready
• The best online marketing tips are ready

The second example doesn’t have the same impact as the first one. It doesn’t make any connection to the reader.

Basically, you need to include “you” somewhere in your subject line.

Always Test Multiple Subject Lines 

You should always test two separate subject lines when you send out a round of emails. A/B split testing allows you to compare two variations of the same email. You can look at the results and easily see which subject line worked best.

Every time you check these results, make a note of the difference between the two subject lines. This will help you learn what works and what doesn’t.

Crafting effective subject lines requires practice but in time you will get better at it and improve your email open rates. Unfortunately, You won’t always get the results that you want. Remember to test multiple subject lines, keep them short, and speak to your reader.

In addition to these ideas, you can find even more online marketing tips, and a way to generate conversion-ready prospects each month, by clicking here to learn about my done-for-you system.

 

Image Source:
Digitalkatie. (Posted: December 12, 2012). Image of mystery: Email mystery. Retrieved from http://www.digitalmediacomputing.org.uk/?p=463
MailChimp. (Updated: March 2, 2017). Image of split testing subject lines: About A/B testing campaigns. Retrieved from http://kb.mailchimp.com/campaigns/ab/about-ab-testing-campaigns
Phrasee. (n.d.). Featured image: Open rate: The most important email marketing metric ever. Retrieved from https://phrasee.co/open-rate-important-email-marketing-metric-ever/

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