7 Ways to Get Your Emails Opened and Read – This is so important because most everyone who works online is aware that, “the money’s in the list.” But even if you build a substantial list of your perfect target audience, it doesn’t mean the money is just going to come pouring in.
List building is only half the battle. How you develop your email marketing strategy and communicate with those subscribers is where your success (or failure) will be determined.
You have to remember that just because someone signed up to your list for a free gift, it doesn’t mean they’re going to open or care about the emails you send. You still have work to do to make that happen.
Having permission to send someone an email doesn’t guarantee that they’ll eagerly look for your emails when dozens of your competitors have also sent emails to them on the same day.
With a cluttered inbox, you have to make sure your message is one that stands out and garners the attention it deserves. It can be frustrating to build a list and then not see any results from it.
Below, you’re going to discover seven simple strategies you can implement that will serve as game changers to your open and conversion rate. Compare it to what you’ve been doing and take steps to make improvements so that you become an email marketing expert with a list that craves your communication.
#1 – The Secret to Writing Subject Lines That Convert
When a consumer sits down and opens their email, staring back at them is often row after row of emails in their inbox, each vying for their attention. Your subject line is what they’ll see first – so it’s the logical first step in leveling up with your goal of improving your open rate.
Once you become a marketer whose insight is highly sought after, you might be able to get away with more boring subject lines. But before that happens, your subject is what’s going to decide whether or not your email is selected by the recipient over your competitors’ or if it’s going to be sent to their spam or trash folder instead.
In order to get better with crafting your subject lines, you have to think like the person on the receiving end. One thing that will make them want to open an email is if it’s clear what the email is about.
Consumers don’t like vague emails or those that promise one thing and end up delivering something else entirely. Some marketers mistakenly believe that they can be vague in order to get their emails opened, but it will usually have the opposite effect.
Another thing that makes people want to open an email is if it you pique their curiosity. You can use emotional verbiage that will resonate with the reader and make them want to see what you have to say about a topic.
Personalizing With Their Name
Personalizing your subject line with their name is often a good way to get people to open your emails. With fellow online entrepreneurs, they’ll know it’s just code you’re using to get their name in it.
But for most other niches, the email recipient won’t realize that, and if they see their name in the subject line, they’ll assume it’s something important and open it. It will look like this to you: [firstname_fix] but to them, it will look like this: Jane/John.
There are other subject line strategies you can test. For example, the use of numbers like “5 Proven Ways to Slim Down Without Giving Up Your Favorite Foods” is always a good opening strategy.
Using questions is also smart. Asking them a question makes them want to see the answer inside. It’s a way of piquing their curiosity. For example, “Are You Making This 1 Critical Error with Your Email Marketing?”
Sometimes, it’s a matter of choosing the right words. There are swipe files online of power words that appeal to people and make them want to know more. Words like exclusive, limited, and others work well.
More recently, people have begun utilizing emojis in their subject lines. For example, it might be a fire symbol to show that the information is hot, or a money sign to signify something financial.
You’re going to want to split test and see what works best with your particular list. For example, some subscribers will prefer short, punchy subject lines and others will respond better to something longer.
If there is any sort of scarcity involved with the reason you are emailing them, it’s always wise to add that to the subject line so that they know they need to open it sooner, rather than later.
#2 – Tailor Your Emails to the Right Audience
Making sure that your emails are slanted for the right audience is an crucial part of getting people to open them and read through them fully. This is why it’s important to segment your list.
Segmenting allows you to highlight different aspects of an offer that you know will be important to one particular demographic. It lets you alter the storytelling and personalization to those individuals’ needs, too.
When the subject line and emails consistently speak just to their needs, rather than a broader spectrum of people interested in the topic, it makes them feel as if your messages are more relevant.
This also allows you to maintain your list because if you’re constantly writing emails that address things they may not be as focused on, they could unsubscribe. You can segment according to behaviors, interests, purchases, locations, age groups, gender, etc.
By segmenting your list, you can select wording that is more appropriate, choose a different tone (empathy or motivation, for instance). You can ensure that your subscribers don’t view your email communications as something generic.
#3 – Hook the Reader Right Off the Bat
For the goal of email marketing success, you don’t just want people opening your emails. You want them to read the entire thing, through to the call to action statement where you have your links and offers.
That requires you to carefully craft an introduction that hooks the reader immediately. Some of the strategies you’ve used in the subject line can work in the introduction, such as starting with a question or scenario for them to consider.
The reader should have some sort of emotional reaction immediately. Your tone and style will set the stage for what’s to come. You might tease them a bit about the information you’re about to deliver below the introduction.
This is where it’s important to paint a picture for your readers. It might be a picture of something they’re currently going through so that they know you “get” them or it might be you painting a picture of how things could be.
Sometimes, depending on your niche and what your email is about, you might start off with something shocking. It might be shocking in a negative way, like the number of people suffering from a health condition.
But it also might be something shocking in a positive way, such as the fact that you wrote a 120-word email that raked in $10,000 in 72 hours. You definitely want to clue them in about what they’re going to find out.
#4 – One of the 7 Ways to Get Your Emails Opened and Read Is to Craft Your Messages with Exceptional Value
This is one of the most important methods of getting the open rate improving and the conversions soaring thanks to a complete read-through of your emails. When you consistently pack them with value, people will be eager to get every email you send.
This lends to your credibility as an email niche marketer. So many entrepreneurs simply send spam emails promoting anything and everything, trying to squeeze a quick buck out of their subscriber, so value alone will set you apart.
Even if you’re promoting something to your audience, make sure that your emails have some tidbit or nugget of value in them. It doesn’t have to be an entire product’s worth, but you can pack a punch with small pieces of advice that are life-changing.
Some email marketers do this with standalone email communications. But you can also create an entire series that drips value out to your subscribers over a period of time. Either way works.
Know The Needs of Your Customers
The best way to provide ample value is to know the needs of your customers inside-out. You want to know what makes them tick. What are their pressing pain points? What are the goals they hope to achieve?
When you have this information, you’re easily able to deliver value with your unique insight and opinions. You can survey your current subscribers to find this out, or investigate your niche demographic on a broader scale, such as using social listening tools.
The kind of value you share might be informative, strategic, educational, etc. It might be facts or it could be a quick tutorial. You might share a quick cheat sheet or checklist in your emails to deliver value, too.
Another way to share value is to curate from other top experts and pair your opinion and thoughts with whatever you shared from the other individual. Value can also come in the form of subscriber perks.
You might have gated content on your blog that’s password protected only for subscribers to access. Or maybe you secured a discount code for your list to someone’s store online (or to your own).
Anything that makes them feel like a VIP is good. You want the value you provide to make them feel like they have something exclusive and treasured. It should be something they can’t get just anywhere because you’re providing your unique take on it.
#5 – Raise the Bar with Your Storytelling and Personalization
Throughout your email, whether it’s the introduction, main body or conclusion, you want to be using a mix of personalization and storytelling whenever possible. This makes the email recipient view you as a friend, rather than a marketer.
It lets the reader see that you’re one of them, that you understand their situation because you’ve been through it. Even if you’re not in the same boat, storytelling can be used to discuss scenarios and examples they can relate to.
When you use personalization to share little bits and pieces of your life or your own journey in the niche, it makes them trust you more. There’s a connection between you and the reader on a more casual level and not just seller to customer.
You want to study various storytelling methods so that you know how to evoke an emotional response in your reader. You might even use the reader as the example, having them picture themselves in a certain situation or outcome.
Previously, we spoke of personalization and using code that shows the person’s name in the subject line. You can use it anywhere in the body of the email, too. You just have to code it in and it will stand out for them when you use their name.
But personalization can also be connecting as two people who are similar. For example, if you have a list of subscribers who are all parents of twins then you have that shared connection and you can personalize the message as a mom to mom or parent to parent role.
#6 – Present Readers with Actionable Advice
This is an important step, too. There are many people online doling out advice. What will be remembered by your readers is who got them to take action. The action they take might vary.
It could be setting up a blog, making a commitment to eat healthier, taking steps to repair their relationship, and so on. But you can’t just be vague about it. You can’t send them off with some valuable information about the benefits of something without telling them what to do next.
Readers love having action steps they can cross off. Many will jot it down or print out your email and follow along. If you want to, you can summarize the steps in the email and give them a link to a PDF with more detail in it about the action steps.
You also want to encourage them to connect with you about their process. They want to know that someone is there to hold their hand and get them to the next stage in their journey.
It’s been proven that people love numbered steps, too. Things like “5 Simple Steps,” “3 Proven Strategies,” and so on work well. And your main action step can be to download a freebie or buy and implement something, too.
One thing that works even better is when you share your results from implementing the action steps, or you showcase one of your subscribers who had success following the same steps.
In fact, you can break the steps up into a drip fed email series. This is often more welcomes and manageable than if you dump the actionable advice all in one email. It’s less overwhelming to them.
#7 – Optimize Your Emails for Time and Deliverability
The last proven technique to ensuring your emails get opened and read is to optimize the deliverability of them. Start by making sure your emails are even getting through to the inbox of your subscribers.
You can watch to see what your Sender Score is and make sure that your number is high. You’ll find a number between zero and 100, with a perfect score being 100. With a tool like Sender Score, which is free, you can see if your emails are getting through or blocked and then clean your list for higher performance.
Sometimes, you might discover that you’ve been using spam triggering words and styles like using all capital letters, linking to unreputable sites, using too many exclamation marks, using words like FREE, prize, winner, and so on.
You also want to time your emails to when your list is most likely to open them. You’ll be able to split test this aspect of your campaigns to find the sweet spot for your best time to send.
Another thing you want to do is ensure that your emails show up correctly on a variety of gadgets. Whether someone is reading it on their PC or on a mobile device, your emails need to adapt to different screen sizes and show up on various browsers, too – just as you make sure your website shows up correctly.
Even something as simple as making sure your name and email address look legitimate and verifiable can help to get your emails through, opened and read by your recipients.
Make sure you clean your list of unsubscribed individuals and emails that bounce. You want to split test and improve your campaigns to avoid blacklisting.
7 Ways to Get Your Emails Opened and Read
Overall, successful email marketing means people enjoy getting your emails, they open them without hesitation, and they take you up on the advice you’re offering. Being an above the board marketer whose intentions are good will serve you – and your subscribers – well.
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