Image Credit: Pixabay
Remember when you were a kid. And you spent hours building the perfect sand castle.
It had a moat. Towers on each corner. Windows. Doors.
Then some other kid came along and kicked it down.
All that hard work gone. Devastating.
It feels a bit like that when subscribers don’t open your emails.
You spend hours crafting the perfect content. You’re sure your material is good.
And then someone doesn’t open it. That’s frustrating.
Luckily things can be different. Let’s look at 5 reasons why your email open rate is low and what you can do about it.
#1 You Have The Wrong Subscribers
This one’s a biggy.
If you have the wrong people on your list. Then they’re not going to open your emails.
Imagine you’re a life coach for top level professionals. Clearly you don’t want to attract stay-at-home Moms onto your list.
This usually happens when you give something away that’s not targeted at your ideal customers.
In the above example, “Tips To Balance Home and Work” will attract more than your ideal audience. Whereas “How To Negotiate a $10,000 Salary Increase” will appeal to a more targeted market.
The solution is to get crystal clear on your target market. Then work to attract them and only them. Make sure your website copy, your opt-in offer, your posts all appeal to your ideal customer.
#2 Your Subject Lines Suck
Have you ever deleted an email because it doesn’t look interesting?
I know I have – especially when the email comes from a business.
If your headlines suck then so will your email open rate.
Here’re some tips to writing good email headlines:
- Keep them short. Many people read email on their mobile device. So will only see the first 50 characters of your email subject line.
- Invoke curiosity. Hint at the solution to a problem, new research or some other discovery.
- Avoid over-using symbols and capital letters. These look spammy and they can also trigger the dreaded spam filters.
- Use a conversational tone. Avoid corporate speak.
- Don’t include someone’s name in the subject line (it looks forced) but do use “you” or “your”.
- Create an email swipe file. Which emails do you open? Keep a swipe file of subject lines you like and try something similar yourself.
#3 Your Content Sucks
It’s no good writing a great headline and then not following through in your content.
If people have opened your past emails and been disappointed. They’ll eventually stop opening your emails.
Writing a great email is just like writing a great blog post.
Good content teaches, solves a problem, is entertaining, or causes an emotional response. Aim to do at least 2 of these things in all of your emails.
#4 Spam Filters
Email spam filters are ruthless. Their goal is to protect users from unsolicited email.
But your email isn’t spam (I hope).
So here’re some things you can do to avoid the spam filters:
- When someone first joins your list ask them to “white-list” your email address. They can do this by adding you to their contacts.
- Avoid certain words in your email: free, mortgage, insurance, act now, casino, limited time, coupons, click now, and open immediately.
- Avoid using lots of exclamation marks and ALL CAPS. Especially in the subject line.
- Don’t include too many images (I prefer to send text emails).
#5 From Address
I still get emails from donotreply@business.com.
Personally I find this off-putting. And according to this article I’m not the only one. 43% of email recipients click the Spam button based on the email “from” name or email address.
Luckily the fix is easy. Make sure the from address on your emails is a real person. I’d also avoid info@business.com.