The number of e-mails sent is increasing rapidly. Target Internet forecasts a growth from 109 billion e-mails in 2015 to 140 billion in 2018 (140 billion… per day!). Yes, you read that right. That’s 20 e-mails per person per day! Meanwhile, according to eMarketer.com, the open rate continues to fall. Despite this, e-mail remains at the heart of most sales and marketing strategies, so how can you improve the open rate of your e-mails? A good e-mail marketing strategy is more effective in terms of results than simply relying on web traffic. You can’t completely control how much traffic your site receives, but you do have complete control over your e-mail list, so you might as well do everything you can to improve it. In a world where inboxes are already bursting at the seams, here are 3 simple tricks to improve your e-mail open rate.
Use standard e-mails
Chances of improving your email open rate: 10-200% As a marketer, it’s likely that you have some seriously underused data at your fingertips. Why not use this data to create the perfect email template? Firstly, I suggest you look through your previously sent emails and sort them by open rate, then click-through rate. Once you’ve identified the trends, you can formulate a hypothesis as to what type of e-mail is most likely to be read and trigger a reaction. Now create at least three different versions of your e-mail template. Continuously adjust these e-mails so that you can measure the differences between the different models. Over time, the good results will accumulate and improving the open rate of your e-mails should come naturally.
Optimize dispatch times
Chances of improving the open rate of your e-mails: 10-100% Sending times have an impact on your open rates, but perhaps not in the way you imagine. Based on an analysis of 21 million messages, a study by Marketing Sherpa showed that e-mails sent at 8am and 9am and at 3pm and 8pm received the highest number of clicks. However, the best open rates occurred at slightly different times: 8am and 9am, and 3pm and 4pm (with most being opened within two hours of receipt). Marketing Sherpa has also identified Tuesdays and Wednesdays as the best days to send e-mails. These time slots seem to suit both B2B and B2C companies, so changing your sending times could enable you to improve the open rate of your e-mails.
Use advanced customization
Chances of improving the open rate of your e-mails: 20-100% To get the most out of advanced personalisation, you will need to collect as much data as possible about your visitors beforehand. This is one of the reasons why cross-checking data between your CRM and your mailing management tools is important. In addition, add personalised links and events throughout your site. Observing visitor activity in more detail will give you a better understanding of your customers and their needs. Now that you have a more concrete idea of the methods that work best, you can start to personalise your e-mails to a great extent. If your marketing budget is small, I recommend starting by checking again and again the templates used and the titles of your e-mails, which can have a huge impact on your open rates. Improving the open rate of your e-mails will undoubtedly take longer than if you had a substantial marketing budget, but the results can still be quite rapid if you adopt a methodical approach.
