I emailed my list of 1,850 subscribers and got a 5% email open rate. Is that good?

It really does all depend on the subject line as you can imagine Steven, one way to improve it though is to resend the email to those who have not opened it yet and test a different subject line! Believe me when I say this will drastically improve you open rates...

hey steve,

I depends if that 5% that did open bought or followed your links.
In most cases you need to warm your list up to you free gifts and
get them involved then try for the sell!

But From your list you should be aiming about 50% open and 25%
clicks to 10/5% buy but dont beat your self up it could of being the wrong
day to send out that message or wrong time of day
test it send it again in a day or 2 with a different header

hope this helps

Matt

I think you want a straight answer and imo and experience a 5% open isn't a good open rate - my good ones are around 25%, normal for me is 15-20%.

Some reasons why it might not be so good is if they signed up ages ago and you never contacted them? If you only make them single opt-ins rather than double.. if you don't have much of a relationship with them or don't mail them regularly..

.. mostly a lot depends on your title tho - if it was too "salesy" then the open rate will be lower - even if it mentions "sales, limited time, offers, discounts, save 10%" etc type words these will get lower open rate compared to normal titles, and muc lower than titles hinting to free gifts etc.

There is plenty of information on here about good titles whic get good open rates, so start mailing them more, find what works best for you.

A low open rate of 5% suggests that you may need to improve your email copy a bit as well as write a more appealing, yet short but catchy Subject line.

Most people don't open emails if they come too often, but if the subject line is catchy, a lot of people will end up opening almost every one that comes in, out of pure, good old human curiousity.

--

I don't use email lists as a form of marketing. I can see the benefit but in practical for my line of online ventures.

Hi Steve,

I agree with the others here and will just add my point of view.

My open rate averages about 20%+. When looking at the open rate as a few stated above it is going to depend on a slew of factors but most important that you can control is your subject line.

Not sure about you but I am on a lot of marketers list and when needing creative subject lines I just scan my inbox to see what hits me.

When testing I've found the shorter curiosity headlines do well for me.

Next step is your clickthru % this is going to deal with the copy of your email. I'll be the first to tell you I'm no copy pro and this is something I think we will all continue to be in school around.

However...I write (or I've been told) exactly how I speak, very laid back and sometimes humorous or witty and that seems to work for my subscribers.

You may also start doing some swaps and giving your list lots of good freebies...that always seems to help me with open rates as they can't wait for the next free gift.

Happy Marketing!

Just thought I'd mention why I don't open all my emails. I am signed up to a lot of lists as I am a newbie trying to get information so I get too many.
What I particularly don't like is getting more than 1 per day from the same person, to be honest that really puts me off. It tells me it's probably a sales letter rather than helpful information. The people I tend to open are those who have sent me a least 5 or so good content emails maybe an Ecourse or even monthly newsletters (I tend to open those even if I save them for later). I'm happy to get a sales pitch at the bottom of those emails but I hate the copy & paste emails I get from so many that are obviously just selling the latest offering and I have started to go through and remove myself from the ones who are just sending copy & paste emails.

However being new I have no list, no opt-in, no offer myself yet. I am just getting started and it intimidates me to think of having to email a list giving away my good content to get them interested. So I can see why so many use the copy & paste method but that's not for me.

I think I'd rather get 1 email a week of quality with a sales pitch than bombarded with daily emails. Yet information I read says you have to keep a steady rate of emails to your list. What is right?

I'd appreciate knowing what is considered the bother a person amount. For me it's 1/d.

Test out subject lines. I find the best way to get a lot of opens is always tell a story or something entertaining in your emails so they have something to read. If you're always selling them, they'll feel like they're being sold to and not like it.

It seems little low, i just get around 25% email open rate and i consider is average, but it really depends upon the quality, high quality 5% open rate can give you more conversions than 25% poor quality.

This thread has taught some important lessons.

1.Email your list at least 1-2 times a week with valuable content that will enrich the lives of your subscribers.

2. Use an autoresponder service like Aweber, that will let you send out the same email with a different subject line to the people who didn't open your first email.

3. Put a video of yourself on the link you are sending your prospects to that thanks them for visiting your website and tells them how your information can benefit their lives. If you want people to buy your products, or better yet open your emails, you better build a relationship with them.

There are a lot of factors that play part in your open rates
and a lot of hurdles in the way.. the big one is to FIRST get
into your readers inbox!

It might say in Aweber that you sent 1,850 emails but that
doesn't mean they all made it to the inbox.

If you do make it to the inbox, your subject line plays a big role,
but more importantly, the name you have made for yourself in your
readers eyes will be the biggest decider if they open or not.

Then, the actual 5% figure you see is not accurate because your AR
probably uses images to calculate open rates.. and unfortunately, a lot of
email clients (gmail, hotmail, yahoo etc) will block images in emails unless
the reader chooses to accept images.

I've personally found that my readers' open rate response (MMO niche) isn't
as high as it was 2 or 3 years ago. I feel it is due to a whole combination of
things.. many more than I listed above.

Daniel Brock had a good idea above.. using a video on your thankyou page
will earn you some instant credibility.. so all future emails will be recieved
a little warmer than usual.

That's my 2 cents anyway.

Stuart Stirling

Hi Steven,
Here I would like to repeat a few basics of successful e-mail marketing once again:
1)Offer as much free content as you can:
People love free content .It's universally true and doesn't depend on your niche.So your initial follow ups should be value packed.Try to share your best quality content and offer them genuine help.If you don't have the time to create the content yourself then get someone to do it for you or buy PLR material related to your niche.

2)Encourage them to ask questions:
Most of the IMers ignore this human aspect.People feel more connected with you when they can talk to you,ask you questions.They should not get a feeling that they are receiving automated messages from a bot.You can do this by including a line like this in the end of your messages:
"If you have got any question,don't hesitate to contact me.Just hit the reply button and I'll try my best to help you."

I am aware that you can not personally reply to everyone if you have thousands of peoples in your list and hundreds of people start to ask you questions..But believe me,very few people are going to hit the reply button.

Your one line is enough to assure them that the person at the other side of the web is a caring one and they can contact him/her anytime they face a problem.

3)Get Them involved:
Try to involve your subscribers in your conversations(even if it is one sided) by sharing a bit of your personal life with them.It always strengthens the bond.You can use this thing to your advantage when developing a new product.Just ask your subscribers about what they would like to get included in your upcoming product.This is great for getting content ideas as well as for preselling.They are much more likely to buy your product if they already know that you have included the solutions to their problems in it.Also don't forget to conduct surveys related to your niche,time to time.

4)Avoid overselling:
Everyone abhor blatant selling.In my opinion,you should limit the no. of promotions to 1-2 per week.More than that will drive your subscribers away..Mix your promotions with free material carefully so they seem a part of the content,not blatant advertisements.

These are few of the truths of e-mail marketing I have learned over my IM career.My opening rates are not exceptional but I get opening rates of 40-45% even on my "bad days".
Thanks,
Vivek Narayan

Remember also that open tracking is done by an invisible 1x1 pixel image. If the subscriber has image viewing off, then, even if they did open the email, it will not count as an open.

This in itself can be troublesome when you use the resend to those that did not open option...

Let's say you get a reported 5% open rate, but, in reality, because of image blocking you could have a MUCH larger number. For argument sake, let's say 15% ACTUALLY opened.

Now, you do the re-mail thing, and 10% of your list is now seeing the same message again, which COULD cause a high unsubscription rate.

Just giving you the facts so you know what you're getting into.

Hi,

I agree with Stuart. Most email companies these days have images turned off by default. And if your emails arrive as text emails with no obvious missing images then the recipient has no need to hit the "show images" button.

I would suggest that a more important metric is the click through rate of an email. When you send out your emails ensure that you use a link that is trackable to that specific mailing. Then you'll get a good idea of not just how many emails get opened but how effective your copy is too.

Cheers

Max

I would say 5% is a great start, the only thing that really matters though is click through rates to your links inside the emails.

Do you write your emails or you use the ones provided buy merchants?

Their promotional material is really good but sometimes those email are just too strong...

I would try working on the pre-selling side of things.

List building and email marketing are extremely hard and extremely easy all in the same sentence. You can split test a product to a list and get two different results every time. Do not think that it is a good deal or a bad deal in ONE 5% return.... You will be fine!

I only use it with Aweber, but there is no harm in asking them

In your campaign, 4% conversion, meaning buyers is ideal.