Tips to Get Your Email Opened by your Ideal Customer
You’ve got mail …Did you know the average employee receives over 121 emails a day. Your email needs to stand out to get noticed. Here are some tips on getting your email opened.
GET PERSONAL
You will see this tip in every blog you read about how to improve your email open rate. Because it works. Using people’s names in subject lines and email marketing copy gets their attention.
But there’s more to personalization than that.
Get to know your readers. Write to them using your brand’s voice which should be designed to speak directly to your target audience. Want to know more … check out Telling Your Brand Story on Social Media.
And, let your readers get to know you. People are more likely to open emails from people they know. Emails should always be sent from a named email box - rather than “customer service” or “info” and definitely not “no-reply”. Use your name, include a photo of yourself in your signature line. Be human.
BE RELEVANT
Avoid generic marketing in favor of targeted marketing. Customer segmentation give you broad audiences you can focus on in copywriting, but within those, there are also smaller groups. After all, you’re not going to send the same email to a new subscriber as to a repeat customer, are you?
Sending relevant email improves open and clickthrough rates, so segmentation is essential.
WRITE A KILLER SUBJECT LINE
If you’re wondering how to improve your email open rate, the best place to start is at the beginning - with the email subject line. Perfecting the subject line can be the difference between recipients skimming past your email, opening it, deleting it or, at the worst, reporting it as spam.
64% of people say they open emails because of the subject line. If you can be clear in the subject line about the benefits you are providing and create a sense of urgency, your email is more likely to be opened.
It's a lot to ask from a single email subject line, especially when you are targeting only 5 to 11 words (50 characters) maximum - but it can be done!
And if you want some examples of great hooks - head over to 24 Hooks to Reel Them in on Social Media. The tips apply to blog posts and email content too!
NAIL THE PREVIEW TEXT
With most email clients, it’s not just the subject line that sells people on opening your email ... it’s also the preview text. That’s the piece of text that tells subscribers more about the content of your email.
You have between 35 and 140 characters to entice the receiver to become a reader.
KNOW YOUR GOAL
Target your email to your goal. It’s best practice to have a single goal – the one thing you want to achieve – for each email. This will help you focus your copy in the subject, preview text and the email itself. Remember, if you have multiple goals you don’t really have a goal so when planning your emails, focus on the key action you want readers to take and build your email around that.
BE ALIGNED
With the best email marketing, everything is aligned. Use the same words, pictures and descriptions of products or services as you move from Opt-in Form to Landing Page to Confirmation Email to Delivery Email.
For example, if you’re delivering a lead magnet guide, you’ll probably have a picture of the guide on both the Opt-in form and the landing page. When you send the confirmation email, you’ll likely include the title of the guide and the same image again. And the copy will match, too. This reassures readers that they’re getting what they signed up for, which starts to build a trusting relationship.
BE RESPONSIVE
Over 50% of emails are now read on a mobile device. Two tips here: the first four words or 50 characters of your subject line are the most important since that’s all mobile readers will see, so frontload the most important words in your subject line.
Be sure your entire email is easily read on a mobile device which means optimizing images, text and content.
Once your email is opened, you actually want it to be read. So here are some bonus tips to getting your email read:
Bonus Tips
MAKE IT EASY TO READ
Writing email marketing copy is much more similar to writing web copy than it is to writing a letter. That means it’s important to:
Follow a logical structure.
Keep paragraphs short.
Include one main idea per paragraph.
Feel free to use bullets and subheadings to break up blocks of text and make your emails scannable.
Test your copy in text format as well as html format as it should be easy to read in both.
WRITE EMAIL MARKETING COPY FOR READERS
If you really want readers to click, then you have to sound like a real person. Be conversational, as if you’re talking to someone who’s sitting across the table from you.
Be engaging – there’s no rule that says that emails from a business have to be dry. Use your emails to stir readers’ emotions by sharing an insider’s view of your company, customer stories or even a personal anecdote. When your subscribers can imagine themselves in your shoes, you’ll start to build a relationship with them.
DON'T SHOUT!!!!!
DON’T WRITE LIKE YOUR MOM AND USE ALL CAPS OR TOO MANY! EXCLAMATION! MARKS!
Alternatively, email is not text so using text language probably doesn’t work either. lmk if u get what i mean - now gbtw.
Overusing either of these forms of communication screams spammy email marketing and that can hurt your email open rate. If enough subscribers report you, it could also hurt your email deliverability or even get you blacklisted by your email newsletter service.
CHOOSE THE RIGHT WORDS
When you look at the best email copy examples, one thing stands out - word choice is crucial to make reading your email a great experience, and since most emails are short, every word counts.
If you want to stir readers’ imagination, appeal to their emotions and get them to take action, you’ve got to:
Use analogies and other literary techniques.
Seed your email marketing copy with sensory words to help them see and feel the picture you’re painting with your words. In an ideal world, you’ll evoke touch and taste, too.
Stir up your readers and convey action by using power words in your subject line, copy and call to action (CTA) - more on this below.
What you don’t say is also important for building trust. Avoid making false promises and other sleazy marketing tactics, or you risk losing subscribers forever.
PROMOTE ACTION
Aside from the subject line, the CTA is the most important part of your email marketing campaign, because that’s what’ll get subscribers to convert, by taking the action you’d like them to take. All the tips we’ve listed above can also help you create the perfect call to action so that subscribers find it almost impossible to resist.
Shaz
