The verdict is in, folks.

Email marketing has the highest ROI out of any other digital marketing initiative.

Why?

This is because other forms of digital marketing focus on collecting qualified leads and converting them through external means.

Simply put, you’re going to spend a lot of time trying to convince your target audience to do business with you.

With email marketing, that’s a completely different story.

You already have an email list full of qualified leads.

The challenge here is to convince them to actually open your emails.

269 billion emails are sent every day.

The average person receives about 88 emails every day!

That’s a lot of emails…

Do you want to learn how to make your emails stand out and improve the open rates of your campaign?

If so, then we have the perfect guide for you!
 

1. Nail Down the Subject Line

The subject line is, without a doubt, the most important aspect of any email.

It tells users what an email is about before they open.
If a user isn’t impressed, they won’t click.

If they perceive your email to be spam, they won’t click.

If your email looks like other uninteresting emails, they definitely won’t click!

35% of users open an email based on the subject line alone.

Oh, and if they’re not liking the emails you send, they’re going to probably flag your email address as spam.

21% of recipients do this even though most of their victims aren’t sending spam.

Yikes…

It’s important to knock the subject line out of the park.

So, it’s safe to say that “News from [Your Business]” or “May Newsletter” isn’t going to cut it.

With that said, try these subject line optimization methods to achieve better results in your email campaign.

  • Ask a question. Questions beg for answers. Adding a question in your subject line is a great way to get personal with your subscribers.
  • Make a command. Sometimes, it’s ideal to be direct with your audience to get them to take action immediately.
  • Use a teaser. People love cliffhangers. It always keeps them coming back for more. Use teasers to pique the interest of your audience and firmly grab their attention.
     

2. Fix the “From” Name

Here is a little-known fact about email service providers, like Gmail and Yahoo.

If they do not recognize a particular email address, they will immediately flag it as spam.

This works out to your benefit most of the time.

Most spam have unintelligible email addresses filled with various numbers and other characters.

This is just a bright-red flag.

However, email service providers can indirectly flag your email as spam if you’re relying on generic company emails like, “[email protected]”.

Instead, get a bit personal and use a legitimate email name that users can respond to.

For example, look at this email from GigSalad demonstrating this excellent tactic.

As you can see, GigSalad’s email campaign features “John @ GigSalad”.

This is actually the first thing users see in their inbox.

This is an amazing way to convince users to click on your emails, and their subject line isn’t half bad either.
 

3. Identify the Best Time to Send

Email campaigns are scientific.

You can’t just plug and play any strategy.

Experimentation is required to refine your results and achieve a positive ROI.

For this reason, you should identify the best time to send your emails.
Contrary to popular belief, there is not a definite time to do this.

We know…

A lot of online articles will claim to have the answer.

To save you a lot of time and disappointment, you’ll need to find out which times work best for your audience.

For example, if some marketing company had success in sending out promotional emails to stay-at-home moms at noon, would that really work for your audience if they’re company executives.

The answer is no!

This is why you should experiment and see what works best for you.

To begin, conduct an A/B or split test.

Segment your email list and send specific emails at different times.

Keep all of the variables the same, like the subject line, email body, etc.

If you are noticing overwhelming positive results during a separate session, then you have your winner.
 

4. Get to Know Your Audience

If your open rates are severely low, then it could mean that you are completely missing the mark on the type of content your audience wants to see.

With that said, how well do you know your audience?

Most importantly, can you prove that you know your audience as well as you say you do?

Understanding your audience is pivotal to create content they want to see on a regular basis.

There are countless ways to form judgments about your audience and produce user-generated content that will boost the open rate of your audience.

And, they are:

  • Surveys: Send a short and uncomplicated survey to gauge the topics your audience wants to read about.
  • Polls: Ask your subscribers to take a quick poll and determine their interests.

  • Reports: Use reports from your email service provider to see which types of emails are getting the most clicks.


5. Go Back to Where it Started

If you have tried all of these methods and are still struggling with your campaign, go back to where it all started.

The signup process!

You need to determine the answers to the following questions:

  • What is the value of subscribing to your email list?
  • What types of emails are they expected to receive?
  • How often will they receive these emails?

Unsuccessful campaigns occur because certain promises weren’t met.

Fulfill all of the promises you made to new subscribers to ensure that they keep on interacting with your company.
 

Give Us a Call Today!

Your email campaign first begins with a perfect website for your brand.

To speak to a member of our dedicated sales team, give us a call today at 1-888-678-8662 or click here to schedule a free consultation.