How to get your emails open, read, and receive quality responses

Any email marketing campaign can be easy to send, but can be just as easy to ignore. With more than 100 messages landing in the average worker’s inbox each day, making sure your email gets read and gets a response can be tricky. Without doubt, email marketing essentially builds relationships with prospects, leads, current customers, and even past customers allowing you to communicate with them directly-- which is crucial for any business’ success. Let’s discuss how you can improve your email marketing conversion rates.

1. Improve your subject lines

For clients or prospects to click through to your email, they first need to open it. Consider focusing more time on your subject line. The subject line of your email is the single most important part of any email marketing message you draft. The reasoning for this is easy-- the subject line is the first thing, right after the “from” name customers or clients look at. Essentially, it is the determining factor of whether someone will open your email or not. To improve the quality of the your subject lines, generate a list of 20 different subject line possibilities. Read through them, get an idea, and then pick your top 10-- process of elimination. Do this until you have three options to choose from. Then, show the top three to a few friends or colleagues and get their opinion before choosing the winner.

2. Create a compelling preheader

Unfortunately, readers often neglect the preheader of an email. In reality, there’s a good chance people will read your preheader before  reading your subject line and opening the email. The preheader acts as the final barrier between an email sent and an email opened. Ultimately, the subject line entices you, but it’s the tagline of preheader that gets even more specific and compelling. Consider writing a preheader that touches on more detail than your subject line. This will ultimately lead subscribers to open. Keep in mind, it’s not where they look, it’s why they click.

3. Avoid spam

Evidently, it’s almost impossible for people to open your email if it’s going straight into their spam folder. Spam filters intend to help people avoid inboxes filled with poor produced emails. However, sometimes, email campaigns with the best intentions catch the reader’s eye. Avoid trying to cover up the unsubscribe button or putting “Re:” or “Fwd” in the subject line. Also, make sure you include the right alt text in your images. Finally, one of the biggest ways to avoid ending up in the spam folder is to test everything. Simply send a test email to yourself and a few friends and ask them what folder they received it in. If it does go to spam, fix what you think might have caused it and try again.

4. Find the Ideal Frequency

Unfortunately, finding the perfect email frequency is easier said than done. The perfect frequency varies from list to list depending who the campaign is being sent to. It also varies based on what your customers expect from you, how they think about you, and the quality of your emails. Find the correlation between open rates and email frequency. This will assist in finding the appropriate frequency for your list. Decrease email frequency for people who rarely open your emails, and increase email frequency for people who open most of your emails. Also, considering doing some research and create a survey to figure out how often your list would like to receive your emails. Then, segment each subscriber a specific list considering their preference. Find the median and your open-rates will increase.

5. Mobile Optimization

Most email marketing services and templates come with built in responsivity. 66% of all emails are opened on smartphones or tablets, meaning that if your email campaigns aren’t mobile responsive, you’re missing out. Keep in mind to use small file sizes considering everything runs slower on mobile. A slow load time is almost automatically an immediate bounce. Consider resizing images to make sure everything fits in the mobile screen. Also, consider making click-ons a bit bigger than they usually are. Small click-ons are harder to click on phone screens. Mobile responsive emails are a must for anyone and their email campaigns. 

In all, making sure your emails are optimized for success can be the make or break of your email marketing campaign. Utilizing these tips will without doubt help you increase your email conversion rates and ultimately increase your clientele. Good luck.

Joe Pekula has worked in graphic design, advertising, and marketing for 10+ with experience in various industries. At WebMax, he brings the company’s vision to life through content, design, and brand initiatives.