Email Marketing

What Do Low Email Open Rates Really Mean?

Email Marketing Send Times

Email Open Rate

Many email marketers are faced with falling email open rates.

There can be many factors involved, but the first thing that must be done is to see if you have a problem with your email open rate. Overtime a slow decline in open rates is expected, however if you have had a drastic drop you need to determine why. These are some common problems that face email marketing today, but there are things you can do to combat them.

Let’s take a look at these 3 ideas for a good email open rates:

Subject Lines:

These are critical! The decision is made about whether to read or trash your email based solely on the subject line. Your subject line needs to directly address what the email is about and a compelling reason to open it. The best way to determine what subject lines work best is to test them. Segment your data and send one subject line to one group and a different one to the other. Continuing to test will help improve your results.

Content:

What are you sending to people? Do they want it? Some people want coupons others want newsletters, tips and so on. You need to determine on sign up what they are looking for and group them accordingly. Sending out emails with content that they do not want is spam to them and they will stop opening all of your messages.

Frequency:

How often are you sending out messages? It could be that you are sending too many. Think about sending less often, not only will this make less in recipients inbox, it will also provide appeal for them to look at a message every once in a while. Remember absence can make the heart grow fonder.

Keep in mind that the way open rates are tracked is by people clicking in your email or downloading the images. If they open it, but do not download the images, then that open is not counted. When you provide relevant content with a reasonable frequency you should not only get better open rates, but increase your responses. Keep in mind that email marketing is an ongoing process, so make adjustments along the way to continually improve.

If you have any questions, contact us today. We are glad to help!