How to Improve Your Email Open Rates without Spending Any Money

Hubspot’s latest research into email marketing puts the general B2X email open rates at 20.94 percent. This means you’re wasting your energy on at least 65 percent of your audience. That seems rather silly and worth changing. Here’s how to raise your email open rates:

Be a solution

Demonstrate (a) that you understand your reader’s position and (b) that you can improve it. Whether they’re in a state of need or want will determine how you speak to them, which was the subject of our latest blog post. 

Demonstrate value

Whether your reader is a millennial, a mom or middle manager (or all three), they’re still a person who puts their pants on one leg at a time and wants to feel secure. Reach past their business need and consider their human need. We hosted a webinar on this topic.

Speak simply

No one’s taking the time to figure out what you’re trying to say. Be understood the first time with small words, short sentences and plenty of white space to let your argument sink in. Here are some tips for avoiding big words.

Interesting research from Superoffice, and proof that brevity works.

Take the active voice

It exudes confidence. But more than that, it invites your reader to lean in and do something. A reader’s behaviour will mimic the text they’re given, so if you want to see action, present your argument in an active voice. We did a blog post about this, too.

Follow the copywriter’s code

Copywriters are trained to get readers to look up, lean in and take action. Half art, half science and almost all psychology. If you master the unwritten responsibilities of a copywriter, you’ll have your readers looking forward to your next reach-out.

Watch your email open rates soar

From there, it’s likely you’ll get new subscribers and then new social followers. This will probably lead to more reach, more hearts and more minds, and ideally land you in more favourites folders. And the potential for more click-throughs? So. Much. Potential. You’ll be like this fabulous commercial that’s been stuck in our minds since sometime in the early 2000s:

If you have questions along the way, feel free to drop us a line.