aweber - open rate low

10% isn't too bad. I know lots of people who would be happy with that.

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Maybe it has more to do with the people on your list. How did you get them? Are they freebie seekers?

I doubt very much if any of the things you mentioned have anything to do with your 10% open rate. Low open rates are due to a couple of things, from useless subscribers to mundane headlines. Split test your headlines and you'll see different percentage of open rates. Personally I think the reason for the low open rates are due to the offer they signed up for as well as untargeted traffic.

Just because you are targeting the make money online niche for example, this doesn't mean they are targeted subs. You must be much more specific than that to have a responsive list. Did your freebie blow them away? Was it just another eBook that they signed up for like the millions of other squeeze pages that offer the same crap? If this is the case then obviously your open rates are going to be low. Unless you get specific, you are fighting for open rates against all the other lists these people are on.

Why would they open your emails?
What have you got to offer that's different from all the other lists they are on?
Where has your traffic come from?
What specific problem are you solving?
How valuable were your first few emails? (especially the first one)

The fact that your emails are not getting opened are largely down to what you have to offer these people. I would open your emails if I know you provide value to me, other than that, I wouldn't bother opening most of your emails. The ones I do open from you on a rare occasion would be because of a headline that's just too juicy to ignore. Even then though, if I open your email that has a fantastic headline but the content wasn't valuable, I would probably not open another email from you.

I would stick my neck out and say that your low open rates are normal because you haven't identified exactly what your subscribers need, and your traffic is not as targeted as you think it is.

We could be here all day with this, but what you need to do now is find out what YOU are doing wrong. Remember, if your traffic is not specific and your offer is not valuable, you are then competing against every other email your subscriber gets from other marketers, and let's be honest here - even you don't open all the emails from the lists you're on unless you know right from the outset that there's value to be had by doing so.

Find the perfect time to send out your emails, try split testing your emails and seeing which one receives the highest open rate than stick to it .

Are your headlines tempting someone to open an email ?

Are you delivering exclusive and high quality information?

Get to know your subscribers,create an email schedule, make sure readers know when to expect emails from you.

The subject line should be split tested...I spend some time there testing long vs short.

Hey Mmarc,
I personally wouldn't worry about the technical things you mentioned..

I'd put my focus on:
1) how the list was built
2) how you interact

If you list was built upon a free offer.. many people will use an email address that they ose only for form filling.. so they never go back and read the emails... so 10% isn't that far from the norm.

If your list was built, based upon people that have bought a product from, then I'd say 10% is low.

Next, you have to look at how you interact.

Are you continually sending affiliate offers?
Did you take some time to engage with the list?
Do you send personal and helpful info you the list?
How about those headlines? Good? Intriguing?

In my own experience all of the above would play a very significant factor in open rate.

With my lists, I do something that I have seen few people do...

I generally get 20% open rates within one hour of my mailing, then my email disappears in the pile at the other end and people stop opening the email...

I look at my conversion rates on a specific email, and if the click-conversion or sales-conversion was strong, I will go to the previous email, check to "view everyone who did not open the email", save that group of people into a "list segment", then mail those who did not open the previous message the same email with a new subject line.

I walk through this process about once a week, when I don't have anything else lined up to mail.

While I will only get 10% to 20% opens on each of my mailings, when I repeat the mailing, I am able to incrementally increase my open rates on a single email piece.

By mailing again those people who missed my emails the previous time through, I am able to incrementally improve my open rates on a single piece of email to as much as 70% to 80% open rates.