Open percentage rates on Email Marketing

by ahaley
12 replies
Hi fellow warriors,

I was wondering if anyone knew some tips on getting a higher open rate when mailing their subscribers?

At the moment I'm getting anywhere between 10 - 20% with a small list.

Any hints or tips would be appreciated.

Cheers Andrew
#email #marketing #open #percentage #rates
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Hi Andrew,

    Open-rates are mostly about expectation-setting and continuity.

    The things that determine our open-rates are nearly all to do with the interactions before, while and immediately after our subscribers opt in.

    (It's true that "later things", such as email subject lines, can make very small, additional differences, but mentioning that is really missing the important, fundamental points).

    Five of the main things that commonly make open-rates lower than they might otherwise be are ...
    • building lists from squeeze pages rather than from an opt-in on a content-rich site
    • building lists from SEO/social media traffic
    • building lists in IM/MMO-related niches
    • failure to offer (in exchange for people's email addresses) a PDF/report which was specifically designed and created in order to brand yourself and your name/pen-name and maximize the open-rate for the subsequent emails as explained here
    • failure to set subscribers' expectations appropriately before they opted in
    That's not to say that the first three of those five things are "wrong", of course: there are some people who use mostly search engine traffic to build lists in the IM and MMO niches by opting people in through a squeeze page, and still have viable businesses by doing so - but they're typically "low open-rate viable businesses", and of course a pretty small minority of marketers, even so.

    A couple of posts/threads that might help/interest you, on this subject ...

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post6123982

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post7875793
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  • Profile picture of the author talfighel
    Give more free content and try to sell less.

    I am not saying that you should not send them any offers or links but try to give them more content and at the end of the email, give them a link to any offer that you want.

    You can also test different email headlines to see which gets better open rates.
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    • Profile picture of the author Stuart Walker
      Originally Posted by talfighel View Post

      Give more free content and try to sell less.

      I am not saying that you should not send them any offers or links but try to give them more content and at the end of the email, give them a link to any offer that you want.

      You can also test different email headlines to see which gets better open rates.
      Giving lots of free content can make your subscribers come to expect nothing but freebies or have them feel like your stuff is worthless that's why you keep giving it away for free, you have to be careful.

      But yes offering value in every email and having a soft sell at the bottom of each email is not a bad idea.

      You have to give them a chance to buy whenever they are ready that's why I don't like the often touted method of only promoting every 3-4 emails as you miss out on a lot of sales. Give them an opportunity in every email.

      Whilst headlines are important what's much more important has been covered in detail by Alexa above.

      You can write epic headlines every day of the week if you like but if people don't know why you are sending them emails, don't care about you or your content, aren't expecting you to email or don't really have an interest in what you have to say because they just wanted to get a freebie then you're pretty much wasting your time.
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  • Profile picture of the author joaquin112
    It depends. For double opt-in, I average 50% open rate on small lists.

    For single opt-in, I average about 20-25%.

    I have read that the average is 20% for all lists.

    It also depends on other factors such as your subject line, your first paragraph and your relationship with your subscribers. The numbers I supplied above should give you a nice target.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart Walker
    The magical number that gets banded around for the IM niche is 10%. This is apparently even what the big name marketers and gurus get.

    I've no idea how true that is but if I was only getting 10% of people to read my emails I don't think I'd bother.
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  • Profile picture of the author Greedy
    My follow up emails are usually 30%-40%.

    Blasts are around 15% - 30%.
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    Just continue to send out more emails. Those who don't open your emails now maybe aren't opening them because what you have to offer isn't a pressing need for them right now. But 2-3 months down the line, they might need your product or service, then they will start to open up your emails more often, and alot of them will eventually buy - assuming if you're continuing to constantly email them throughout the months.
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    • Profile picture of the author Stuart Walker
      Originally Posted by Randall Magwood View Post

      Just continue to send out more emails. Those who don't open your emails now maybe aren't opening them because what you have to offer isn't a pressing need for them right now. But 2-3 months down the line, they might need your product or service, then they will start to open up your emails more often, and alot of them will eventually buy - assuming if you're continuing to constantly email them throughout the months.
      What kind of advice is this?

      He's asking how to get increased open rates because people are not opening his emails and you suggest just to keep sending more emails and eventually they will open them.

      More likely eventually they will mark them as spam or unsubscribe because you keep sending them something they have no interest in.

      If your subscribers are not opening your emails the last thing you need to do is bombard them with more emails but instead work out why they aren't opening.

      I imagine the most common factor will be because of the way they opted in (squeeze page and bribe vs opt in on content rich site), how their expectations were set, what they were promised when they joined and how you explained to them what would happen next.
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  • Profile picture of the author Humbee360
    I know speaking from my own experiences that there are so many marketers that send too many emails out promoting aff offers, promoting just about anything or everything that it gets so that I just delete them all, I get so sick of seeing the same offer over and over again.

    Big product launches that promise everything and deliver nothing.

    One such product that was heavily promoted by so many people that I had 114 emails many of them three or four times from each person promoting them, I just deleted them all and never even looked at them.

    (I know that is jaded, but it is I think reflective of how most people feel about email marketing.)

    I think most marketers do not know what they are doing even when they claim to make millions online, I do not believe them, too many of them are liars.
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  • Profile picture of the author JamesHellwig
    Just check the stats and my latest newsletter got an 18% open rate and sends to over 9,000 people. I don't know if this is good or bad in the grand scheme of things but it's just above average for my newsletter. I haven't worked out a successful title that gets me the best open rates yet, if anyone knows the secret that's why I'm here to learn.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart Walker
    I haven't worked out a successful title that gets me the best open rates yet, if anyone knows the secret that's why I'm here to learn.
    Read the thread and you'll see it's about much more than just titles.
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  • Profile picture of the author mbacak
    Originally Posted by ahaley View Post

    Hi fellow warriors,

    I was wondering if anyone knew some tips on getting a higher open rate when mailing their subscribers?

    At the moment I'm getting anywhere between 10 - 20% with a small list.

    Any hints or tips would be appreciated.
    Some easy things to do:

    ->> Split test your subject lines...
    ->> Removed the unopens after 60-90 days... (or a period you choose)
    ->> Pay attention to the first line in your email, people usually see that
    along with the subject line and it can cause them to open it up too :-)

    But why are you focusing your
    energy on open rates...

    You should be focusing on clicks!
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