Subscribers not opening my e-mails

So much for your magic software solution. Looks like your subs aren't the quality you were hoping for. Focus in quality leads, not push button magical software ones and you'll do much better

C`mon guys I am looking for some positive suggestions instead of telling me I am a failure.
Thanks a lot.

Al, I have no idea how you built your list.

I can tell you from experience that tire-kicking leads will get MUCH LESS OF AN OPEN RATE than your real buyers.

Your buyer open rate can be in the >=50% open rate consistently.

Your "solo ad" or "Co-Reg" leads might get a 15% open rate if you're lucky.

(I'm sure there will be someone saying my statistics are wrong, and that's fine, but this is my own experience).

So what can you learn from this? - Work hard to turn your list into buyers.

:]

Hope this helps, and stay cool

PS: I also want to mention that organic leads (from my blog) get a MUCH HIGHER open rate, often times even exceeding my buyers. (My follow up sequence is consistently >=60% open rate for certain segments of my blog).

Just my random thoughts.

Another thing I might add... People seem to think that open rates are normally at like 80%.

I think people who say that are smoking some good stuff, either that or have a list of 100% buyers.

I talk with a lot of solo ad vendors, and people that have spent a boatload on solo ads.

And the typically average open rate for solo vendors and those that build their list via solo ads is 5% or significantly less.

Food for thought.

(Yeah, I'll get some hatemail on this one guaranteed).

It all depends on the quality of your leads and where they are coming from.

If you are using leads that you generated from solo ads then they quality is less better then if you got them from PPC ads on Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

You also need to test HEADLINES because some will get you lower open rates and others will get you higher open rates.

Mine is always at 2% too and I test a few new headlines and got like 3%-5% open rate.

Here are some headlines that I have used:

200 e-mails sent

Health niche: Staying healthy is a tough job 1.29% open
Home based: Why the dog did not follow? 2%

What you put in the subject area will determine
your open rate. You have to put something catchy
that will motivate your email list to open the email.
However 2% is the normal standard for IMers unless
you are one of those internet gurus.

What you put in the subject area will determine
your open rate. You have to put something catchy
that will motivate your email list to open the email.
However 2% is the normal standard for IMers unless
you are one of those internet gurus.

Check your own inbox and look at the headline of some of the emails you're most likely to open. Study those headlines and figure out what makes you want to open them. Then model your headlines after the ones you like.

Unfortunately there is no magic bullet for you. You're already getting 2% so you are at least average (remember about 50% are worse than you!).

You are going to have a small ceiling no matter what you do BUT you can always improve. Just test with MANY different headlines.

Personally I'm not a list builder any more. Just didn't like the grind. But if you are persistent you should do OK in the long run.

Good luck!

I think all E-Mails are spam. You only open the one your interested in.
Anyway those headlines were for my subscribers.

What does "Why the dog did not follow" even mean? If it was at least compelling, I could see that working, but not only is that subject line not compelling, it doesn't make any sense...

It was `nt suppose to. Just weird way to pique interest. I got 2% opened.
I know it`s not 100%.

What does "Why the dog did not follow" even mean? If it was at least compelling, I could see that working, but not only is that subject line not compelling, it doesn't make any sense...

It was `nt suppose to. Just weird way to pique interest. I got 2% opened.
I know it`s not 100%.

"Why the dog did not follow"? LOL... man that's hilarious. You might have to learn some copywriting and email marketing skills, and focus on getting more high quality leads to your email list.

Why are you building an email list and sending emails if you think all emails are SPAM?

That said, you have to think about your prospect. What are their biggest fears/concerns?

What was the headline on the squeeze page or whatever you used to capture your leads?

Whatever it was, all of your emails should be about that specific thing.

"Health Niche" is huge. It could be any number of a million concerns.

You have to both pique interest, and give a reward right in the headline. Just one or the other won't cut it.

Health Niche: Alert: Are You Eating These 5 "Health" Foods?
Home Based: Are You Making These 5 Email Subject Mistakes?

They want to know what/if they are doing something wrong, and they know there is going to be 5 tips contained in the email...arouse curiosity and reward.

Good luck.

Why the dog not follow? And you wonder why your open rate sucks? That makes ZERO sense and will be flagged as spam with the mass Viagra emails.

IHOW are you building your lists and where are the subs coming from?

Try to make sure that your subject line gives the subscriber a reason to open it.

Don't forget - the average email user gets hundreds of emails a day. I know I do. The trick to catching my attention is to make sure it speaks to me.

Either talk about a problem that resonates with me, or a solution that I may be looking for, or just something interesting that I can relate to.

In short, put yourself into the shoes of your subscriber who no doubt has a busy life, and an overflowing inbox. And then try to rise above the din.

Al, as others have said, the main problem here is the quality of your leads. I don't know about the "magic software" that some were referring to, but I do know that any type of "magic push button" software is usually no good.

The home business/make money online niche is very difficult, and has some of the lowest (if not THE lowest) open/click-through rates of any niche. Therefore, you're really going to have to go after quality leads, and you're going to have get a lot more of them to see results that are typical of other niches and micro niches.

In order to achieve success as an email marketer in your niche, you really need to step up your game and stand out from the crowd. That means you need to offer amazing free content at first in order to gain the trust of your subscribers. There are so many people marketing the wrong way in this niche that most subscribers have come to have really low expectations of the content they are going to receive. If you want to break through and really impress your subscribers, I suggest you deliver (and even over deliver) on what you promise them on your squeeze pages.

Another problem you are going to face is that many people who are interested in this niche have set up what I call "throwaway" or "freebie" email accounts that they use to subscribe for these offers. These are email accounts that the subscriber uses specifically for the purpose of subscribing to various lists and getting various free offers. I have to tell you that in these cases your emails are probably never going to be seen by the subscriber. That is why you MUST make a good first impression. If you don't, you may as well go ahead and delete the lead from your autoresponder right away because there is no sense paying for a lead that is never going to produce any income for you.

Sit down when you have time and think long and hard about what you can do to amaze people so that they will look forward to opening your emails.

The next step for you is your copy. If you aren't a writer then it is well worth hiring someone to write your emails for you. If you want to go a cheaper route, there are many super successful marketers who take their best producing emails and put them into a "swipe file" and then sell them.

Next you need to understand that if your traffic is coming from a low quality source, any leads you get from that traffic will most likely be low quality as well. Think of it as a "fruit of the poisonous tree" effect.

My experience has shown me that the best traffic comes from these sources:

Google Adwords (must send to a blog with high quality content - no squeeze pages allowed)
Organic search engine traffic
Bing Ads
Facebook Ads
Solo Ads
Ad swaps
Forum Sigs/Forum Ads
Article directories
Facebook groups/fan pages
CPA networks
Lead Impact
Certain PPC networks
Mobile ads
Blog comments
Affiliate driven traffic (this can go either way depending on what methods your affiliates are using to send you traffic)
Download page/Thank-you page traffic
Free WSO's
Warrior Classified Ads
Craigslist/US Free Ads/Backpage (not the best but better than safelists & traffic exchanges)

Anything not listed above is going to produce leads that are basically worthless. Avoid safelists, traffic exchanges, and PTC sites. That traffic is total junk.

So, in review:

Provide KILLER content and build a relationship with your list. Avoid the "hard sell".

Use good quality traffic sources.

Stay away from "magic software".

Hope that helps a bit.

If you are using a normal list which is not opt-in then 2% open rate is satisfactory because these sort of list have 1-5% open rate. In other case if you have a list of active subscribers than your open rate should be around 15%.

Try to send emails with some interesting subject lines relevant to the particular audience may be this apart from that engage with your subscribers on daily basis sometimes not engaging withs subscribers for a very long time cause low open rates.

As others have said, just how targeted are your subs?

Look at my signature....it takes you to opt in for a free report that shows you a simple $100 a day blueprint, but, it doesn't say that the blueprint mainly involves list building.

Any subsribers don't realize this until they have opted in (unless of course they clicked my sig on this forum)

I set that squeeze page up as an example to try and prove a point to somebody.

I usually put a little bit of copy on my squeeze page telling people what the free report is about.....if they are not interested in that particular sub niche of IM I recommend they do not opt in as my other "for sale" products in that funnel will also be about the same topic or compliment it in some way. (I don't actually put the "for sale" comment on though)

Now as a result my opt ins are lower (if using solo's) but the ones who do opt in are much more targeted and actually interested in what my free report and follow up emails are about.

Now back to my squeeze page in my sig.....I have had the highest opt in rate from any solo I have ran with this squeeze page but my open rate is the lowest of all because the list I have built is waaay to general and I probably have people who opted in who don't want to do list building etc.

Now this "somebody" said I was crazy for turning away potential subscribers by telling them too much on my squeeze page but my little experiment showed him that although my few micro lists have less subs than his 1 big general list, at least mine is targeted and my emails get opened a lot more than his.

So...just how targeted are your subscribers?

I have dealt with a "dead list" or a "non engaging list". I have realized that I was marketing to the wrong people. Targeted leads are the key. I suggest you run some solo ads from providers who have a reputation.

Another tip, I suggest using Confirmed Opt In to sift out the people who are not really interested in being on your list any way.

You are on your way!

Get different copy. Especially the subject. Try to connect with them other ways too besides just email. I.E. Facebook messages, tweets, texts, etc.

From those email headlines you posted, those are not something I would even bother to read let alone click to open. As what others have said, it seems that maybe your headline or subject line isn't enticing enough for people to actually click to open and read the rest of your email.

Subscribe to various blogs and websites and study the emails that they're sending to their subscribers. Even better is to try and find someone in your niche that's pretty much catering to the same audience and see the emails that they send. And read those emails and then try to apply some of the techniques to your own emails.

It all takes practice and learning from your mistakes. Even from what @sethczerepak posted, try something like that on your list and see if it makes a difference.

good luck.

To me the jury is still out on whether or not the leads are any good.

As others have already mentioned, those subject lines have a ton of room for improvement.

"Staying healthy is a tough job" basically is a major turn off. I don't want to know about anything tough or difficult, especially when its referred to as a job.

You're not even addressing the email recipient. You're just making a vague ineffective statement.

Without knowing what is on the inside of the email, a better subject line could read something like this:

How you can easily get healthy and STAY healthy

5 surefire ways to get and stay healthy

Just the term getting healthy is too vague as well. Be more specific. Address them in the subject line as if you were writing an instant message to your best friend or mother.

here's an easy way to get healthy starting today

Some shit like that.

As far as the dog being followed, I don't even know where to start on that one.

All people on a home based business list really care about is making money and they want it fast and easy and they don't really want to work for it. So you need to appeal to that - and not talk in pointless riddles.

A good book for you to read is "Tested Advertising Methods" by John Caples. Lots of great proven headline lessons in there. Your email subject line is your headline.

But don't give up.

I guarantee you your open rates aren't the lowest ever

What kind of relationship do you with your subscribers?

How was your list built ?

Are you providing any value to your list?

Has your list been cold for sometime now?

Are you mailing your subscribers enough?

There are just too many variables.

My advise would be to always watch where you get your traffic from and how you promote to your list.

Also if you are promoting too much, or too little that may also affect your overall open rates.

Good luck.

Hey Matthew,

My list comes from squeeze pages,Blogs and social sites an many other high volume sites.

As far as value I give them free information and tell them stories on subjects of interest.

I mail them every other day And tell them stories 1 time a week.

So far it is working very well. My open rate got as high as 10% and my click rate got as high as 4% with sales.

I guess I am doing something right.

Thanks for you post

I was interested in this thread because getting a higher open rate is obviously important to any of us sending email campaigns. I think from the comments however the list being used is the problem here. If it is a harvested list and not a list of true subscribers then I would not expect a high open rate from everything that I have read about these lists.

I use a double opt-in process to collect contacts.

Here is a great article that I read that pretty much sums up why I don't use purchased lists. Not to mention that most bulk email companies won't let you use them anyway.
Why the Opt-In is Crucial to Your Email Marketing Success

Check this out and it may help you collect a better quality list to improve your results and save marketing money at the same time.

In my experience, click through rates and open rates tend to be higher for people who actually already purchased your products. If it is a freebie-seeker, then your freebie had better be good otherwise the subscribers are going to stall out. Give your subscribers what you say you will deliver and you should see an improvement.