The open rate in email marketing is one of the vital metrics that determines the level of success you would get from that campaign.
Ideally, the goal is to have your email copies go straight to the inbox of your audience, yet it is easier said than done. Trust me, I know.
It can be very frustrating to write what one might consider ‘great’ email copies and watch in dismay as your effort goes to ‘promotions’ or even worse, ‘spam folder’. This could bring tears to your eyes lol.
Before we dive deep into open rate in email marketing and what affects it, let us take a look at a few important terms.
Bounce Rate: This is the rate at which your email copies go to other folders that are not the inbox folder. It could be promotions or spam, yet the important thing to note is that it affects your campaign negatively, as a number of persons do not take messages in those folders seriously.
Click Through Rate: This is the rate at which people click on the links that are contained in your email copies. It is a great way to build back-links if said links take them back to your website.
Conversion Rate: This is the percentage of people that click on the link from your email copies and go ahead to take the desired action.
Delivery Rate: As the name suggests, this has to do with how often your emails drop in the inbox folder of your audience and as we know by now, the more your emails drop in their inbox, the higher the chances of being opened
READ ALSO: How To Start Email Marketing | Free Email Marketing Guide For Beginners
What Affects Open Rate in Email Marketing?
For every email marketing campaign, there are factors that come in to play with how successful it is going to be. They are;
Delivery: Simply put, the more your emails drop in the right place (Inbox), the greater the chances of having them read. This beckons the question, how do you get more of your emails to their inbox?
Subject Line: This is perhaps the most important factor in determining where your email drops and how often your audience gets to open them, which brings me to the next question
How do you craft a good subject?
- Curiosity and Controversial subject lines have been employed in successful email marketing campaigns in the past and are still the tow most reliable methods of crafting an engaging subject line. The former seeks to make your audience very curios about the content of your emails while the latter brews controversy (in a good way lol). In email marketing subject and content, it pays to always be creative when drafting what your audience would see.
- Use of Emoji: Yes, those little guys actually help your delivery rate. Using email algorithms, they are considered features that are used by people who have become familiar with each other.
- Personalise: Does it not feel better when an email is addressed to you with your name involved in the subject, than the random and quite frankly boring sir/ma? If a nomenclature must be included, it should be the name of the recipient as it appears in the form. This increases their curiosity and in turn raises the open rate.
- Know Your Audience: Well, this is the oldest trick in the book. Knowing who your ideal customer is would give you a good idea on what kind of words they would find attractive.
Content in Email Marketing
I was not going to write on this, but I had a change of mind. You know why? Because it plays a crucial role in the your email marketing campaign. By getting your subject line right, you would get people to open your email copies, what happens after they do? To see more, click here
Your guess is as good as mine. After getting and reading your first few emails, there is a higher chance that your audience would now look forward to your emails after brand recall. To aid in this process, here are a few points to note for content;
Tone: Two words; Conversational and mostly informal. The best sales copies are those that does not require a dictionary for comprehension and understanding. I understand the urge to pack your emails with content, yet it would be a waste of time if your audience don’t read through.
Length: People who are coming into your funnel for the first time ever might not be patient enough to read through lengthy content. One way to eliminate this conversion challenge is by making your first few emails as short as possible. This would give them the chance to become familiar with your brand before you get to bombard them as we do here at 😀DMSI.
Choice of Words: Always have in mind that emails are a way of reaching out to a large number of people with different orientation. While some see it as a welcome development, there are people who see it as an invasion of privacy (Not minding that they opted in). To overcome this, kindly refrain from cultural or religious sensitive words that might act as a negative trigger and most likely lead to losing a number of potential clients.
CTA: Otherwise known as call to action. Do not write an email copy without attaching a desired action. This clearly states what you wish to achieve with that email copy and is put at the back of the mind of all those who read your email.
Writing Style: If possible, tell a story and mostly write in the first person. That way, you would be addressing people individually using ‘you’ or ‘your’ as against the use of ‘them’ or ‘their’
In Conclusion
The success of your campaign in general and open rate in email marketing in particular is dependent on how well you know your audience, how often your email drops in their inbox and how well you can persuade them to take the desired action(s).