Email Marketing Questions from a forum rookie!

24% is not bad. It really depends on your niche. It depends on who you try to reach and how targeted your email is.

Just avoid exclamation marks and caps lock words... You don't want to look like spam, you want to say something serious.

You must understand that people gets tens, if not, hundreds of emails everyday. Open rates will be low because of this plus the spam filters, etc. 25% is powerful. If you want to improve open rates, then go for sms marketing, much higher open rate.

Give value, make it clear that you're selling products, e-mail almost every day, provide tips, write crazy good copy.

The works.

Hi,

Okay so you've got the open rate covered.

Move your focus onto the structure of your email body copy by
developing your skills on getting people to actually CLICK on
your links and take action.

If you are about to promote a great offer either your own or an
affiliate one it doesn't matter how great the offer is if you cannot
get others to click through and take action.

As in terms of actual numbers well that's just pure speculation.

You'd place yourself in a great place to TEST different email campaigns
and broadcast emails against one another and compare your results.

I know G.R. allows you to even split test email campaigns and any
"Broadcast" emails you send so that you get a clear picture of what
kind of style, structure and template works best for your email results.

Of course 100% open and 100% click rate would be fantastic but very
hard to accomplish of course.

But until YOU go out there and actually get your feet wet it's all just
pure speculation.

Allow others to see you by sharing your stories/personality within your
emails too.

That always gets a high response rate.

Think about it.

There are so many people out there getting hammered with emails that
look like they've been sent by robots you and I both have a HUGE
advantage by being real with our subscribers and getting them on our
side.

I could never send out one of those emails where you feel a though
you are being spoken to by a machine and not a human being.

Even when I only send SHORT emails I try to explain why and be as
transparent as I possibly can.

Hope this helps
G.B.

Good post Gavin.

I'd say with email marketing, get the balance between information, professionalism and personality right. This can be a hard few balls to juggle. You don't want to seem to stiff, and neither do you want to come over as some joker who hasn't a foggy what they are on about (in business type niches anyway).

The whole point of email marketing is to gain rapport and credibility, so keep it useful, light and breezy.

All your email marketing metrics will vary greatly by niche and industry in addition to the age of your list and other non niche factors like that.

In terms of subject lines...here is a list I just posted in one of my groups. It's straight from my personal copywriter and perhaps it will give you some ideas


SUBJECT LINE STYLES

>>> Fascination
>>> Qualification
>>> Curiosity
>>> Questions
>>> Benefits
>>> Reporter
>>> Universal Issues
>>> Urgency
>>> Numbered List
>>> Controversial

FASCINATION

I Sold 5,000 Units In 48 Hours – Here’s How...
The Major Mistake That’s Crippling Your Sales Figures... This Program Could Change Internet Marketing Forever... Find These Hidden Gems Before Anyone Else Does Panda Updates... Too Much Competition... No List... SO WHAT! How To Build A List Of 50,000 In The Next 60 Days
A Simple Trick To Boost Your Conversions With No Extra Work A Fantastic Way To Turn $10 Into $10,000
Oh Look... Google’s Done It Again (This Means Trouble...) 15,000 Clicks In 12 Hours? (You have GOT to see this...)

QUALIFICATION

Niche Markets For Marketers Who Travel
If You Know How To...
Don’t Read This Email Unless...
If You’re Only Interested In Making Money, Ignore This Message Open To The First 63 People
Only 5% Will Qualify
Only Read This If...
WANTED: Bloggers Who Write Their Own Content
PPC EXPERTS ONLY – There’s Been A New Development This Will Only Apply To The Top 5%

CURIOSITY

Do You Actually Hate Me?
I’m About To Burst Into Tears...
That’s It! I’m Through...
Wow – I Love This Thing SO Much!
This Thing Is Going To Change My Entire Business... My Most Embarrassing Moment
I Made This For You...
I Owe You An Apology
My Secret Weapon...
Things My 10-Year Old Taught Me About Selling

QUESTIONS

But Isn’t That Black Hat?
Is SEO Obsolete?
Are You Prepared For The Next ‘Panda’?
Are You A Man Or A Mouse?
Why Haven’t You Made 6 Figures Yet?
Have You Taken Advantage Of This Yet?
How Long Does It Take YOU To Write A Sales Letter? Is Your CPA Network Treating Your Fairly? How Much Could You Have Made?
Could You Pass This Test?


BENEFITS

Solve Your SEO Problem In The Next Two Hours
How To Add 100 Pages To Your Blog By Next Week Program Yourself To Double Your Productivity
How To Use PPC To Boost Sales Without Losing Your Shirt How To Keep Site Visitors On Your Blog For 5 Minutes+
Ask Me Anything About Improving Your Business Creating A Top Selling WSO Is Easier Than You Thought These Are The Secrets Only Six Figure Marketers Seem To Know This Affiliate Marketing Expert Reveals ALL This Secrets... How To Impress Your Clients For $10

REPORTER

BIG LIES IM Gurus Are Still Telling
The Internet Marketing Fiasco
I Have Some Important News...
Seven Figure Marketer Misses Out On $1.5 Million New Case Study On 2012’s Hottest Niches The Next Big Traffic Generation Model Surefire Methods To Business Suicide
The Latest Statistics On IM Failure Rates Popular Myths Everyone Believes
A Clickbank Pro Finally Speaks...

UNIVERSAL ISSUES

Still Not Making 1,000+ Sales? – We’ll Show You How
Not Getting Enough Traffic?
The Secret To High Conversions...
Wondering When You’ll Replace Your Job Income?
Had Enough Of False Promises?
If You Ever Wanted A Surefire Way To Find A Profitable Niche... The Cheapest Way To Get 10,000 Subscribers
The Fastest Way To Attract Big-Time Affiliates
I Was Wasting My Time With Niche Marketing Until... How To Overcome Your Fear Of Failure

URGENCY

It’s Almost Over...
Only 17 Left!
You Have 48 Hours...
This Is Happening Tonight At 10pm EST ATTENTION: Don’t Let This Opportunity Pass You By Time’s Nearly Up!
Last Chance...
The Deadline Is Monday!
The Last Day...
Just 24 Hours Left... Then It’s Gone For Good

NUMBERED LISTS

10 Things You Need To Know Before You Start PPC
7 Things That Will Guarantee Your Failure
6 Ways To Generate A Passive Income
8 Steps To Becoming A Product Guru
15 Big Mistakes When Starting A Blog Network
4 Niches That Are About To Explode...
3 Things You Should NEVER Outsource
9 Reasons To Forget About SEO For Traffic
5 Warning Signs A Niche Isn’t Worth The Trouble
The Two Most Essentials Resources You Need To Profit Online

CONTROVERSIAL

Be Very Careful When Listening To This Guy...
PPC Stands For ‘P-ss Poor Conversions’
I Made A Mistake...
This Might Get You In Trouble... But It Works
Why I’ll Never Use Clickbank Again
The Worst Piece Of Advice I Was Ever Given By A Millionaire Why They Want You To Fail...
A Blog Post That’ll Make Your Blood Boil
How A Complete Idiot Made More Money Than I Did... Popular Software You Should Think Twice About Using

Open rates depends on the niche you are in and the quality of the list, but anyways around 50% to 60% is a good average open rate.

That's not entirely true. If your last email was rubbish, chances of getting your next one opened, regardless of the subject line, is likely to be pretty low.

Subject lines are important, but they're nothing more than gimmicks if your message doesn't deliver the goods.

The email you send today can have the biggest impact on open rates for tomorrows email. Personally, subject lines are the least determining factor for emails I open. The senders name - and what has come before are the 2 most important things I consider.

Stop thinking like a marketer - and start thinking like a prospect/customer.

There are several things you can do to not only get people to open your emails, but to get them to do what you want them to do once they finally open it, such as click a link or buy a product. Be honest, build trust with them, and make your emails clear in their message and in what you want your readers to do. Give them useful products and info and don't spam.

People appreciate useful info and products, but as soon as they smell a spammer, they block them out of their email box or automatically delete their emails.

Actually the most important thing to get your email opens happens way before you even send an email.

It's all about building the relationship with your subscriber BEFORE they opt in and making sure someone ends up on your list because they WANT to receive emails from you not just because you bribed them with a free report and happen to be sending them emails, that they might not be interested in, as a consequence of that.

That's why squeeze pages and bribed opt ins aren't a great means of building a responsive list that opens and responds well to your emails. There's no relationship built and many will never even look at your freebie or read any emails so the relationship never gets built.

It's why emails sent to people who landed on a site full of epic content or go through a content funnel before opting in get higher open rates as you've proved to them upfront you can provide them value and probably even solved some of their problems so they opt in willingly and can't wait to receive emails from you.

THIS is what gets emails open. Fancy headlines are cool but they only go so far.

So work on building your relationship with your prospects first before they opt in and you'll see a jump on open rates.

Making email more personal will help in open rate...Personalised emails using name in subject line could have better results....